LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



hapjj. 










! UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 






THE 



CRADLE of the CHRIST. 



A STUDY IN 



PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 



BY 



y 



OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM. 



NEW YORK: 
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 

182 FIFTH AVENUE. 
1877. 

ft 




■F7 



Copyright, 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 

1877. 



PREFACE. 



The literary intention of this volume is sufficiently 
declared in the opening paragraph, and need not be 
foreshadowed in a preface ; but as the author's deeper 
motive may be called in question, he takes the liberty 
to say a word or two in more particular explanation. 
The thought has occurred to him on reading over 
what he has written, as a casual reader might, that, 
in his solicitude to make his positions perfectly clear, 
and to state his points concisely, he may have laid 
himself open to the charge of carrying on a contro- 
versy under the pretence of explaining a literature. 
Such a reproach, his heart tells him, would be unde- 
served. He disclaims all purpose and desire to 
weaken the moral supports of any form of religion ; 
as little purpose or desire to undermine Christianity, 
as to revive Judaism. It is his honest belief that no 
genuine interests of religion are compromised by 
scientific or literary studies ; that religion is inde- 
pendent of history, that Christianity is indepen- 
dent of the New Testament. He is cordially per- 



IV PREFACE. 

suaded that the admission of every one of his con- 
clusions would leave the institutions of the church 
precisely, in every spiritual respect, as they are ; and 
in thus declaring he has no mental reserve, no misty 
philosophical meaning that preserves expressions 
while destroying ideas ; he uses candid, intelligible 
speech. The lily's perfect charm suffers no abatement 
from the chemist's analysis of the slime into which it 
strikes its slender root; the grape of thejohannisberg 
vineyards is no less luscious from the fact that the 
soil has been subjected to the microscope ; the fine 
qualities of the human being, man or woman, are the 
same on any theory, the bible theory of the perfect 
Adam, or Darwin's of the anthropoid ape. The hero 
is hero still, and the saint saint, whatever his ancestry. 
We reject the inference of writers like Godfrey 
Higgins, Thomas Inman, and Jules Soury, who 
would persuade us that Christianity must be a form of 
nature-worship, because nature-worship was a large 
constituent element in the faiths from which it 
sprung ; why should we not reject the inference of 
those who would persuade us that Christianity is 
doomed because the four gospels are pronounced 
ungenuine ? Christianity is a historical fact ; an in- 
stitution ; it stands upon its merits, and must justify 
its merits by its performances; first demonstrating 
its power, afterward pressing its claim ; vindicating 
its title to exist by its capacity to meet the actual 



PREFACE. V 

conditions of existence, and then asking respect on 
the ground of good service. The church that arro- 
gates for itself the right to control the spiritual con- 
cerns of the modern world must not plead in justifica- 
tion of its pretension that it satisfied the requirements 
of devout people of another hemisphere, two thousand 
years ago. The religion that fails to represent the 
religious sentiments of living men will not support 
itself by demonstrating the genuineness of the New 
Testament, the supernatural birth of Jesus, or the in- 
spiration of Paul. Other questions than these are 
asked now. When a serious man wishes to know 
what Christianity has to say in regard to the position 
of woman in modern society, a quotation from a letter 
to the christians in the Greek city of Corinth, is not 
a satisfactory reply. Christianity must prove its 
adaptation to the hour that now is ; its adaptation to 
days gone by, is not to the purpose. 

The church of Rome had a glimpse of this, and 
revealed it when it took the ground that the New 
Testament did not contain the whole revelation ; that 
the source of inspiration lay behind that, used that as 
one of its manifestations, and constantly supplied new 
suggestions as they were needed. Cardinal Wiseman 
did not hesitate to admit that the doctrine of trinity 
was not stated in the New Testament, though un- 
doubtedly a belief of the church. It would have been 
but a step further in the same direction, if Dr. 



VI PREFACE. 

Newman should declare that the critics might have 
their way with the early records of the religion, 
which, however curious as literary remains, were not 
essential to the constitution or the work of the 
church. Strauss and Renan may speculate and 
welcome ; the mission of the church being to bless 
mankind, their labors are innocent. A church that 
does not bless mankind cannot be saved by Auguste 
Nicolas ; a church that does bless mankind cannot 
be injured by Ernest Renan. 

Leading protestant minds, without making so 
much concession as the church of Rome, have practi- 
cally accepted the position here maintained. It is 
becoming less common, every day, to base the claims 
of Christianity on the New Testament. The most 
learned, earnest, and intelligent commend their faith 
on its reasonableness, confronting modern problems 
in a modern way. St. George Mivart quotes no 
scripture against the doctrine of evolution. No one 
reading Dr. McCosh on the development hypothesis, 
would suppose him to be a believer in the inspiration 
of the bible. He reasons like a reasonable man, 
meeting argument with argument, feeling disposed 
•to confront facts with something harder than texts. 
'The well instructed christian, if he enters the arena 
of scientific discussion at all, uses scientific weapons, 
and follows the rules of scientific warfare. The prob- 
lems laid before the modern world are new ; scarcely 



PREFACE. VII 

one of them was propounded during the first two 
centuries of our era; not one was propounded in 
modern terms. The most universal of them, like 
poverty, vice, the relations of the strong and the 
weak, present an aspect which neither church, 
Father, nor Apostle would recognize. Whatever 
bearing Christianity has on these questions must be 
timely if it is to be efficacious. 

The doctrine of christian development, as it is 
held now by distinguished teachers of the christian 
church, implying as it does incompleteness and there- 
fore defect in the antecedent stages of progress 
points clearly to the apostolic and post apostolic times 
as ages of rudimental experience, tentative and crude. 
Why should not the entertainers of this doctrine 
calmly surrender the records and remains of the pre- 
paratory generations to antiquarian scholars who are 
willing to investigate their character ? No discovery 
they can make will alter the results which the centu- 
ries have matured. They wj.ll simply more clearly ex- 
hibit the process whereby the results have been 
reached. 

We may go further than this, and maintain that 
the unreserved abandonment to criticism of the liter- 
ature and men of the early epochs would be a positive 
advantage to Christianity, for thereby the religion 
would be relieved from a serious embarrassment. 
The duty, assumed by christians, of vindicating the 



VIII PREFACE. 

truth of whatever is found in the New Testament im- 
poses grave difficulties. It is safe to say that a very 
large part of the disbelief in Christianity proceeds from 
doubts raised by Strauss, Renan, and others who have 
cast discredit on some portions of this literature. 
Christians have their faith shaken by those authors ; 
and doubtless some who are not christians are preju- 
diced against the religion by books of rational criti- 
cism. The romanist, failing to establish by the New 
Testament, or by the history of the first two centuries, 
the primacy of Peter, the supremacy of Rome, the 
validity of the sacraments, the divine sanction of the 
episcopacy, loses the convert whom the majestic order 
of the papacy might attract. The protestant, failing 
to prove by apostolic texts his cardinal dogmas, pre- 
destination, atonement, election, must see depart un- 
satisfied, the inquirer whom a philosophical exposition 
might have won. The necessity of justifying the 
account of the miraculous birth of Jesus repels the 
doubter whom a purely intellectual conception of in- 
carnation might have fascinated ; and the obligation 
to believe the story of a physical resurrection is an 
added obstacle to the reception of a spiritual faith in 
immortality. Scholarship has so effectually shown 
the impossibility of bringing apostolical guarantee for 
the creed of Christendom, that the creed cannot get 
even common justice done it while it compromises 
itself with the beliefs of the primitive church. The 



PREFACE. IX 

inspiration of the New Testament is an article that 
unsettles. Naturally it is the first point of attack, and 
its extreme vulnerability raises a suspicion of weak- 
ness in the whole system. The protestant theology, 
as held by the more enlightened minds, is capable of 
philosophical statement and defence ; but it cannot 
be stated in New Testament language, or defended on 
apostolical authority. The creed really has not a fair 
chance to be appreciated. Its power to uphold spirit- 
ual ideas, and develop spiritual truths ; its specula- 
tive resources as an antagonist of scientific material- 
ism, animal fatalism, and sensualism, are rendered all 
but useless. Powerful minds are fettered, and good 
scholarship is wasted in the attempt to identify be- 
ginnings with results, roots with fruits. 

This is a consideration of much weight. When 
we remember how much time and concern are given 
to the study of the New Testament for controversial 
or apologetic purposes, to establish its genuineness, 
maintain its authority, justify its miracles, explain 
away its difficulties, reconcile its contradictions, har- 
monize its differences, read into its texts the thoughts 
of later generations, and then reflect on the lack of 
mind bestowed on the important task of recommend- 
ing religious ideas to a world that is spending enor- 
mous sums of intellectual force on the problems of 
physical science and the arts of material civilization, 
the close association of the latest with the earliest 



x PREFACE. 

faith seems a deplorable misfortune. If there ever 
was a time when the purely spiritual elements in the 
religion of the foremost races of mankind should be 
developed and pressed, the time is now ; and to miss 
the opportunity by misplacing the energy that would 
redeem it is anything but consoling to earnest 
minds. 

Thus might reason a full believer in the creed of 
Christendom, a devoted member of the church ; 
Greek, Roman, German, English. The man of let- 
ters viewing the situation from his own point, will, 
of course, feel less intensely the mischiefs entailed by 
the error ; but the error will be to him no less evi- 
dent. It is sometimes, in war, an advantage to lose 
outworks that cannot be defended without fatally 
weakening the line, drawing the strength of the gar- 
rison away from vulnerable points, and exposing the 
centre to formidable assault. The present writer, 
though no friend to the christian system, believes him- 
self to be a friend of spiritual beliefs, and would gladly 
feel that he is, by his essay, rather strengthening 
than weakening the cause of faith, by whatever class 
of men "maintained. 



CONTENTS. 



Pages. 

I. False Position of the New Testament. i 

II. The Messiah 14 

III. The Sects 40 

IV. The Messiah in the New Testament. 51 
V. The First Christians 70 

VI. Paul's New Departure 83 

VII. The Last Gospel 106 

VIII. The Western Church 140 

IX. Jesus 184 

Authorities 228 



I. 

FALSE POSITION OF THE NEW 
TESTAMENT. 

The original purpose of this little volume was to in- 
dicate the place of the New Testament in the literature 
of the Hebrew people, to show in fact how it is compre- 
hended in the scope of that literature. The plan has 
been widened to satisfy the demands of a larger class of 
readers, and to record more fully the work of its lead- 
ing idea. Still the consideration of the New Testa- 
ment literature is of primary importance. The writer 
submits that the New Testament is to be received 
as a natural product of the Hebrew genius, its con- 
tents attesting the creative power of the Jewish mind. 
He hopes to make it seem probable to unprejudiced 
people, that its different books merely carry to the la^t 
point of attenuation, and finally exhaust the capacity 
of ideas that exerted a controlling influence on the de- 
velopment of that branch of the human family. To pro- 
fundity of research, or originality of conclusion, he 
makes no claim. He simply records in compact and 



2 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

summary form, the results of reading and reflection, 
gathered in the course of many years, kept in note 
books, revised year by year, tested by use in oral instruc- 
tion, and reduced to system by often repeated manipula- 
tion. The resemblance of his views, in certain particu- 
lars, to those set forth by German critics of the school 
of Strauss or of Baur, he is at no pains to conceal. His 
deep indebtedness to them, he delights to confess. At 
the same time he can honestly say that he is a disciple 
of no special school, writes in the interest of no theory 
or group of theories, but simply desires to establish 
a point of literary consequence. All polemic or dog- 
matical intention he disavows, all disposition to lower 
the dignity, impair the validity, or weaken the spiritual 
supports of Christianity. His aim, truly and soberly 
speaking, is to set certain literary facts in their just 
relation to one another. 

It has not been customary, nor is it now custom- 
ary to assign to the New Testament a place among the 
literary productions of the human mind. The collec- 
tion of books bearing that name has been, and still is 
regarded by advocates of one or another theory of in- 
spiration, as of exceptional origin, in that they express 
the divine, not the human mind ; being writings super- 
human in substance if not in form, containing thoughts 
that could not have occurred to the unaided intelligence 
of man, neither are amenable to the judgment of un- 
inspired reason. To read this volume as other volumes 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 3 

are read is forbidden ; to apply to it ordinary critical 
methods is held to be an impertinence ; to detect er- 
rors or flaws in it, as in Homer, Plato, Thucydides, is 
pronounced an unpardonable arrogance. A book that 
contains revelations of the supreme wisdom and will 
must be accepted and revered, must not be arraigned. 

Criticism has therefore, among believers chiefly 
we may almost say solely, been occupied with the 
task of establishing the genuineness and authenticity 
of the writings, harmonizing their teachings, arranging 
their contents, explaining texts in accordance with the 
preconceived theory of a divine origin, vindicating 
doubtful passages against the objections of skeptics, 
and extracting from chapter and verse the sense re- 
quired by the creed. Literature has been permitted to 
illustrate or confirm points, but has not been called in 
to correct, for that would be to judge the infinite by 
the finite mind. 

In accordance with this accepted view of the New 
Testament as a miraculous book, students of it have 
fallen into the way of surveying it as a detached field, 
unconnected by organic elements with the surrounding 
territory of mind ; have examined it as if it made no 
part of an extensive geological formation, as men for- 
merly took up an aerolite or measured a boulder. The 
materials of knowledge respecting the book have been 
sought within the volume itself, neither Greek, 
Roman, German nor Englishman presuming to think 



4 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

that a beam from the outside world could illumine a 
book 

Which gives a light to every age, 
Which gives, but borrows none. 

The rationalists it is needness to say, avoided this 
error, but they betrayed a sense of the peril aris 
from it, in the polemical spirit that characterized much 
of their writing. In Germany, the tone of rationalism 
was more sober and scientific than elsewhere, because 
biblical questions were there discussed in the scho- 
lastic seclusion of the University, in lectures delivered 
by learned professors to students engaged in pursuits 
purely intellectual. The lectures were not addrc 
to an excitable multitude, as such discourses are, to a 
certain extent, in France or England, and particularly 
in America, and consequently stirred no religious pas- 
sions. The books published were read by a small 
class of specialists who studied them as they would 
treatises in any other department of ancient literature. 
Nearly half a century ago the disbelief in miracles, 
portents, and supernatural interventions, was enter- 
tained and published by German university profes- 
sors ; stories of prodigies were discredited on the gen- 
eral ground of their incredibility, and the books that 
reported them were set down as untrustworthy, what- 
ever might be the evidence of their genuineness. A 
miraculous narrative was on the face of it unauthentic. 
Efforts were accordingly made to bring the New Tes- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 5 

tament writings within the categories of literature. 
Criticism began the task by applying rules of " natu- 
ral" interpretation to the legendary portions, thus 
abolishing the supernatural peculiarity and leaving 
the merely human parts to justify themselves. The 
method was the best that offered, but it was unscien- 
tific ; " unnaturally natural ; " confused from the ne- 
cessity of supplementing knowledge by conjecture, 
and faulty through the amount of arbitrary supposi- 
tion that had to be introduced. Attention was di- 
rected to the historical or biographical aspect of the 
books, and only incidentally to their literary charac- 
ter, as productions of their age. 

The method pursued by Strauss was strictly sci- 
entific and literary, though on the surface it seemed 
to be concerned with biographical details. By treat- 
ing the narratives of miracles as mythical rather than 
as legendary, as intellectual and dogmatic rather than 
as fanciful or imaginary creations, and by tracing 
their origin to the traditionary beliefs of the Old Tes- 
tament, he ran both literatures together as one, show- 
ing the new to be a continuation or reproduction of 
the old. The construction, otherwise, of the New 
Testament literature concerned him but incidentally. 
The first " Life of Jesus," published in part in 1835, 
was devoted to the discussion of the gospels as books 
of history. The second — a revision — was published in 
1864, contained a much larger proportion of literary 



6 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

matter in the form of documentary discussion, made 

frequent rcferen I iur, and other writers of the 

Tubingen School, and attach I weight to their 

conclusions. In the " Old and the New Faith," pub- 
lished nearly ten years later, the main conch 
Baur are I as the legitimate issue of literary 

criticism, though without attempt at formal reconcili- 
ation with his own original view, 

Baur's method was original with himself. lie 
finds the key to tl the coi n of 

the first three I the A 

and portions of Other bi <»ks, in the quarrel between 
Paul and Peter feelingly described in the 
chapter of the letter to the Galatians. The "synop- 
tical" Gospels, he contends, and with singular in- 
genuity argues, are the results of that 
between the broad and the narrow churches; are 
not, therefore, writings of historical value or bio- 
graphical moment, but books of a doctrinal chara 
not controversial or polemical, — mediatorial and con- 
ciliatory rather than ssive, — but written in a 
controversial interest, and intelligible only when read 
by a controversial light. Baur called his the " histor- 
ical" method, as distinguished from the dogmatical, 
the textual, the negative; because his starting point 
was a historical fact, namely, the actual dispute re- 
corded, in language of passionate earnestness, by one 
of the parties to it, and distinctly confessed in the 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 7 

attitude of the other. But Baur's method has a still 
better title to be called literary, for it is concerned 
with the literary composition of the New Testament 
writings, and with the dispute as accounting for their 
existence and form. His studies on the fourth Gos- 
pel, and on the life and writings of the Apostle Paul, 
are admirable examples of the unprejudiced literary 
method ; by far the most intelligent, comprehensive 
and consistent ever made ; simply invaluable in their 
kind. They contain all that is necessary for a com- 
plete rationale of the New Testament literature. 
These, taken in connection with his " History of the 
First Three Centuries, 1 ' his " Origin of the Episco- 
pate," his " Dogmengeschichte," put the patient and 
attentive student in possession of the full case. But 
Baur lacked constructive talent of a high order, and 
has been less successful than inferior men in em- 
bracing details in a wide generalization. 

Renan adopts the method of the early rationalists, 
but applies it with a freedom and facility of which 
they were incapable. He takes up the Gospels as 
history, and sifts the literature in order to get at the 
history. He claims to possess the historical sense, 
by virtue of which he is able to separate the genuine 
from the ungenuine portions of the Gospels. It is a 
point with him to shoiv how the character of Jesus 
was moulded by the spirit of his age, and by the liter- 
ature on which he was nurtured ; but his treatment 



8 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

of the evangelical narratives as a mass of biographical 
notes reflecting, with more or less correctness, the 
personality of Jesus, is not quite compatible with a 
rational or even a literary treatment of them i 
continuation of the traditions of the Hebrew 
The constructive force being centred in Jesus him- 
self, the full recognition of the ci I the 
Hebrew mind, which was illustrated in Jesus and his 
was precluded. Renan is in a measure com- 
pelled to make Jesus a prodigy — an exceptional per- 
son, who baffles ordinary standards of judgment ; ami 
in SO doing distorts the connection between him, the 
generations that went before, and the generations that 
came after. Strauss does more justice to the New 
Testament literature, in attempting only its partial 
explanation. Baur does more jw iking 
a literary explanation of the writings as they are. 
Renan picks and choos< rding to our arbitrary 
criterion, which capriciously d: .-elf over a 
field covered with promiscuous treasui 

Lord Amberley's more recent attempt reveals the 
weakness of the common procedure. Without the 
learning of Strauss, the perspicacity of Baur, or the 
brilliant audacity of Renan, he strays over the field, 
making suggestions neither profound nor original, and 
rather obliterating the distinct impressions his prede- 
cessors have made than making new ones of his own. 
His chapter on Jesus will illustrate the confusion that 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 9 

must issue from a false method, which does not deserve 
to be called a method at all. 

Books have been written about the New Testa- 
ment by the thousand — libraries of books ; but they 
merely supplant and refute one another. Each is en- 
titled to as much consideration as the rest, and to no 
more. The old materials are turned over and over ; 
the texts are subjected to new cross-examinations ; 
the chapters and incidents are shuffled about with 
fresh ingenuity; new suppositions are started ; new 
combinations are made ; but all with no satisfactory 
result. Whether it be Auguste Nicolas, who recon- 
structs the Gospels to justify the predispositions of 
Romanism ; or Edmond de Prcssense, who does the 
same service for liberal Protestantism ; or Henry Ward 
Beecher, who constructs a Christ out of the elements 
of an exuberant fancy ; or William Henry Furness, 
who is certain that " naturalness " furnishes the touch- 
stone of historical truth ; the conclusion is about 
equally inconclusive. 

The literary method avoids the dogmatical embar- 
rassments incident to the supernatural theory ; offers 
easy solutions of difficult problems ; connects inci- 
dents with their antecedents ; interprets dark sayings 
by the light of association ; and places fragments in 
the places where they belong. An exhaustive appli- 
cation of this treatment would probably explain every 
passage in the New Testament writings. A partial 



IO THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

application of it like the present will indicate at least 
some of the capacities of the method. 

The literary treatment differs from the dogmatical 
represented by the older theologians who used the 
New Testament as a text book of doctrine ; from the 
purely exegetical or critical, which consisted in the 
impartial examination of its separate parts ; from 
the destructive or decomposing treatment pursued by 
the so-called " rationalism ; " and from the " histor- 
ical," as employed by Baur and the " Tubingen school." 
It is in some respects more comprehensive and posi- 
tive than either of these, while in special points it 
adopts all but the first. Every other method presents 
a controversial face, and is something less than scien- 
tific, by being to a certain degree inhospitable. This 
consults only the laws which preside over the literary 
expression given to human thoughts. 

It has been customary with christians to widen as 
much as possible the gulf between the Old and the 
New Testaments, in order that Christianity might ap- 
pear in the light of a fresh and transcendent revela- 
tion, supplementing the ancient, but supplanting it. 
The most favorable view of the Old Testament re- 
gards it as a porch to the new edifice, a collection of 
types and foregleams of a grandeur about to follow. 
The Old Testament has been and still is held to be 
preparatory to the New ; Moses is the schoolmaster 
to bring men to Christ. The contrast of Law with 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. II 

Gospel, Commandment with Beatitude, Justice with 
Love, has been presented in every form. Christian 
teachers have delighted to exhibit the essential supe- 
riority of Christianity to Judaism, have quoted with 
triumph the maxims that fell from the lips of Jesus, 
and which, they surmised, could not be paralleled in the 
elder Scriptures, and have put the least favorable con- 
struction on such passages in the ancient books as 
seemed to contain the thoughts of evangelists and 
apostles. A more ingenuous study of the Hebrew 
Law, according to the oldest traditions, as well as its 
later interpretations by the prophets, reduces these 
differences materially by bringing into relief senti- 
ments and precepts whereof the New Testament mo- 
rality is but an echo. There are passages in Exodus, 
Leviticus, Deuteronomy, even tenderer in their human- 
ity than anything in the gospels. The preacher from 
the Mount, the prophet of the Beatitudes, does but 
repeat with persuasive lips what the law-givers of his 
race proclaimed in mighty tones of command. Such 
an acquaintance with the later literature of the Jews 
as is readily obtained now from popular sources, will 
convince the ordinarily fair mind that the originality of 
the New Testament has been greatly over-estimated. 
Even a hasty reading of easily accessible books, 
makes it clear that Jesus and his disciples were Jews 
in mind and character as well as by country and race ; 
and will render it at least doubtful whether they ever 



12 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

outgrew the traditions of their birth. Paul's claim to 
be a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee of the Phar- 
isees, " circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of 
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin," is found to be more 
than justified by his writings ; and even John's exalted 
spirituality proves to be an aroma from a literature 
which Christianity disavows. The phrases " Redemp- 
tion/' "Grace," "Faith," "Baptism," "Salvation," 
"Regeneration," "Son of Man," "Son of God," 
" Kingdom of Heaven," are native to this literature, 
and as familiar there as in gospel or epistle. The 
symbolism of the Apocalypse, Jewish throughout, 
with its New Jerusalem, its consecration of the num- 
ber twelve, — twelve foundations, twelve gates, twelve 
stars, twelve angels, — points to deeper correspon- 
dences that do not meet the eye, but occur to re- 
flection. We remember that the New Testament 
constantly refers to the Old ; that great stress is laid 
on the fulfilment of ancient prophecies ; that Jesus 
explicitly declares, at the opening of his ministry, that 
he came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but 
to reaffirm and complete them, saying with earnest 
force " till heaven and earth pass, not one jot or tittle 
shall in any wise pass from the law until all be ful- 
filled." We discover that his criticisms bore hard on 
the casuists who corrupted the law by their glosses, 
but were made in the interest of the original com- 
mandment, which had been caricatured. In a word, 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 3 

so completely is the space between the old dispensa- 
tion and the new bridged over, that the most delicate 
and fragile fancies, the lightest imagery, the daintiest 
fabrics of the intellectual world are transported with- 
out rent or fracture, across the gulf opened by the 
captivity, and the deserts caused by the desolating 
quarrels that attended the new attempts at reconstruc- 
tion, while the massive ideas that lie at the founda- 
tion of Hebraic thought, wherever found, are landed 
without risk or confusion in the new territory. Be- 
tween the Jewish and the Christian scriptures there 
is not so much as a blank leaf. 

If this can be made apparent without over-stating 
the facts, everything in the New Testament, from the 
character of Jesus, and the constitution of the primi- 
tive church, to the later development by Paul, and the 
latest by John, must be subjected to a revision, which 
though fatal to Christianity's claim to be a special 
revelation, will restore dignity to the Semitic charac- 
ter, and consistency to the development of historic 
truth. Better still, it will heal the breach between 
two great religions, and will contribute to that dis- 
armament of faiths from which good hearts anticipate 
most important results. Of all this hints only can 
be given in a short essay like this ; but if the hints 
are suggestive in themselves or from their arrange- 
ment, a service will be rendered to the cause of truth 
that may deserve recognition. 



II. 

THE MESSIAH. 

The period of the captivity in Babylon, which is 
commonly regarded as a period of sadness and desola- 
tion, a blank space of interruption in the nation's life, 
was, in reality, a period of intense mental activity; 
probably the highest spiritual moment in the history 
of the people. Dispossessed of their own territory, 
relieved of the burden and freed from the distraction 
of politics, their disintegrating tribal feuds terminated 
by foreign conquest, living, as unoppressed exiles, in 
one of the world's greatest cities, with opportunities 
for observation and reflection never enjoyed before, 
having unbroken leisure in the midst of material and 
intellectual opulence, the true children of Israel de- 
voted themselves to the task of rebuilding spiritually 
the state that had been politically overthrown. The 
writings that reflect this period, particularly the later 
portions of Isaiah, exhibit the soul of the nation in 
proud resistance against the unbelief, the disloyalty, 
the worldliness, that were demoralizing the less noble 
part of their countrymen. The duty was laid on them 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 5 

to support the national character, revive the national 
faith, restore the national courage, and rebuild the na- 
tional purpose. To this end they collected the tradi- 
tions of past glory, gathered up the fragments of 
legend and song, reanimated the souls of their heroes 
and saints, developed ideas that existed only in germ, 
arranged narratives and legislation, and constructed 
an ideal state. There is reason to believe that the 
real genius of the people was first called into full ex- 
ercise, and put on its career of development at this 
time; that Babylon was a forcing nursery, not a 
prison cell ; creating instead of stifling a nation. The 
astonishing outburst of intellectual and moral energy 
that accompanied the return from the Babylonish cap- 
tivity attests the spiritual activity of that " mysterious 
and momentous " time. When the hour of deliverance 
struck, the company of defeated, disheartened, crush- 
ed, to all seeming, " reckless, lawless, godless " exiles 
came forth " transformed into a band of puritans." 
The books that remain from those generations, Daniel^ 
the Maccabees, Esdras, are charged with an impetu- 
ous eloquence and a frenzied zeal. 

The Talmud, that vast treasury of speculation on 
divine things, had its origin about this period. Re- 
cent researches into that wilderness of thought reveal 
wonders and beauties that were never till recently 
divulged. The deepest insights, the most bewildering 
fancies, exist there side by side. The intellectual 



l6 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

powers of a race exhausted themselves in efforts to 
penetrate the mysteries of faith. The fragments of 
national literature that had been rescued from obli- 
vion, were pondered over, scrutinized, arranged, classi- 
fied, with a superstitious veneration that would not be 
satisfied till all the possibilities of interpretation had 
been tried. The command to " search the scriptures " 
for in them were the words of eternal life, was ac- 
cepted and faithfully obeyed. "The Talmud" says 
Emanuel Deutsch, " is more than a book of laws, it is 
a microcosm, embracing, even as does the Bible, 
heaven and earth. It is as if all the prose and poetry, 
the science, the faith and speculation of the old world 
were, though only in faint reflections, bound up in it 
in nuce" The theme of discussion, conjecture, spec- 
ulation, allegory was, from first to last, the same, — 
the relation between Jehovah and his people, the na- 
ture and conditions of salvation, the purport of the 
law, the bearing of the promises. The entire field of 
.investigation was open, reaching all the way from the 
number of words in the Bible to the secret of infinite 
being. No passage was left unexposed with all the 
keenness that faith aided by culture could supply ; 
and when reason reached the end of its tether, fancy 
took up the work and threaded with unwearied indus- 
try the mazes of allegory. 

Among the problems that challenged solution was 
the one touching the Messiah, his attributes and 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I J 

offices, his nature and his kingdom. This theme had 
inexhaustible capacities and infinite attraction, for it 
was but another form of the theme of national deliv- 
erance which was uppermost in the Hebrew mind. 

The history of the Messianic idea is involved in 
the obscurity that clouds the early history of Israel ; 
and this again is embarrassed with the extreme diffi- 
culty of deciding the antiquity of the Hebrew scrip- 
tures. At what moment was Israel fully persuaded 
of its providential destiny ? That is the question. For 
the germs of the Messianic idea were contained in 
the bosom of that persuasion. That the idea was 
slow in forming must be conceded under any estimate 
of its antiquity ; for its development depended on the 
experiences of the nation, and these experiences un- 
derwent in history numerous and violent fluctu- 
ations. The hope of a deliverer came with the felt 
need of deliverance, and the consciousness of this need 
grew with the soreness of the calamity under which 
the nation groaned, as the character of it was deter- 
mined by the character of the calamity. The national 
expectation was necessarily vague at first. It rested 
originally on the tradition of a general promise given 
to Abraham that his descendants should be a great 
and happy nation, blessing and redeeming the nations 
of the earth ; that their power should be world-wide, 
their wealth inexhaustible, their peace undisturbed, 
their moral supremacy gladly acknowledged. " The 



1 8 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against 
thee to be smitten before thy face ; they shall come 
out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven 
ways. The Lord shall command the blessing upon 
thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest 
thy hand unto ; and he shall bless thee in the land 
which the Lord thy God giveth thee. The Lord shall 
establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath 
sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the command- 
ments of the Lord, and walk in his ways ; and all 
people of the earth shall see that thou art called by 
the name of the Lord." 

As a promise made by Jehovah must be kept, the 
anticipation of its fulfilment became strong as the 
prospect of it grew dim. The days of disaster were the 
days of expectation. The prophets laid stress on the con- 
dition, charged the delay upon lukewarmness, and ur 
the necessity of stricter conformity with the divine 
will : but the people, oblivious of duty, held to the pledge 
and cherished the anticipation. When the national 
hope assumed the concrete form of faith in the advent 
of an individual, when the conception of the individ- 
ual became clothed in supernatural attributes, is un- 
certain. Probably the looked-for deliverer was from 
the first regarded as more than human. It could 
hardly be otherwise, as he was to be the representa- 
tive and agent of Jehovah, an incarnation of his truth 
and righteousness. The Hebrews easily confounding 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 19 

the human with the superhuman, were always tempted 
to ascribe supernatural qualities to their political and 
spiritual leaders, believing that they were divinely 
commissioned, attested and furthered ; and the 
person who was to accomplish what none of them had 
so much as hopefully undertaken, would naturally be 
clothed by an enthusiastic imagination, with attributes 
more than mortal. The poets depicted the stories of 
the future restoration in language of extraordinary 
splendor. Joel, some say eight hundred years before 
Jesus, two hundred years before the first captivity, 
foreshadows the restoration, but without any portrait- 
ure of the victorious Prince. A century and a half 
later we will suppose, the first Isaiah speaks of the 
providential child of the nation, on whose shoulder 
the government shall rest, whose name shall be called 
Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty Potentate, Everlasting 
Father, Prince of Peace ; whose dominion shall be 
great, who shall fix and establish the throne and king- 
dom of David, through justice and equity for ever, 
and in peace without end ; a lineal descendant from 
David, a sprout from his root. 

" The spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him, 
" The spirit of wisdom and understanding, 
" The spirit of counsel and might, 
" The spirit of knowledge and fear of Jehovah. 
" Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, 
" And faithfulness the girdle of his reins ; 



20 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

" To him shall the nation repair, 
" And his dwelling place shall be glorious." 
The second Isaiah, supposed to have written dur- 
ing the exile and not long before its termination, as- 
sociates the hope of restoration and return with king 
Cyrus, on whose clemency the Jews built great ex- 
pectations, intimating even that he might be the 
promised deliverer. " He saith of Cyrus : ' He is my 
shepherd ; he shall perform all my pleasure.' He 
saith of Jerusalem : ' She shall be built ; ' and of the 
temple : ' Her foundation shall be laid.' ' 

In the book of Daniel, by some supposed to have 
been written during the captivity, by others as late as 
Antiochus Epiphanes (B. C, 175), the restoration is 
described in tremendous language, and the Messiah 
is portrayed as a supernatural personage, in close 
relation with Jehovah himself. He is spoken of as a 
man, yet with such epithets as only a Jewish imagina- 
tion could use in describing a human being. Heinrich 
Ewald, in the fifth volume of his history of the people 
of Israel, devotes twenty-three pages to an account of 
the development of the national expectation of a 
Messiah, which he calls " the second preparatory con- 
dition of the consummation in Jesus." After alluding 
to Joel's fervent anticipation, and Isaiah's description of 
the glory that was to come through the King, in whom 
the spirit of pure divinity penetrated, animated and 
glorified everything, so that his human nature was 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 21 

exalted to the God-like power, whose actions, speech, 
breath even attested deity, he says : " It is not to 
be questioned that this most exalted form of the con- 
ception of the anticipated Messiah appeared in the 
midst of the latter period of this history, when before 
the great victory of the Maccabees, the eternal hopes 
of Israel were disturbed in their foundations along 
with its political prospects, and the advent of a King 
of David's line seemed wholly impossible. At this 
time the deathless hope became more interior and 
imperishable in this new, glorious, celestial idea, and 
the Messiah presented himself before prophetic vision 
as existing from all eternity, along with the inde- 
structible prerogatives of Israel, which were thought 
of as existing in an ideal realm, ready to manifest 
themselves visibly when the hour of destiny should 
come. And we are able, on historical grounds, to 
assume that the deep-souled author of the book of 
Daniel, was the man who first sketched the splendid 
shape of the Messiah, and the superb outline of his 
kingdom, in his far-reaching, keen, suggestive, lumin- 
ous phrases ; while immediately after him the first com- 
poser of our book of Enoch developed the traits 
furnished him, with an equal warmth of language and 
a spiritual insight, not deeper perhaps, but quieter 
and more comprehensive." Ewald supposes the book 
of Enoch to have been written at various intervals 
between 144 and 120 (B. C.) and to have been com- 



22 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

pleted in its present form in the first half of the 
century that preceeded the coming of Christ. The 
book was regarded as of authority by Tertullian, 
though Origen and Augustine classed it with apocry- 
phal writings. In it the figure of the Messiah is in- 
vested with super-human attributes. He is called 
" The Son of God," " whose name was spoken before 
the sun was made ; " " who existed from the beginning 
in the presence of God," that is, was pre-existent. At 
the same time his human characteristics are insisted 
on. He is called " Son of Man," even " Son of 
Woman," "The Anointed," "The Elect," "The 
Righteous One," after the style of earlier Hebrew 
anticipation. The doctrines of angelic orders and 
administrations, of Satan and his legions, of resurrec- 
tion and the final judgment, though definitely shaped, 
perhaps by association with Persian mythologies, lay 
concealed in possibility within the original thought of 
ultimate supremacy which worked so long and so 
actively, though so obscurely, in the mind of the 
Jewish race. 

The books of Maccabees, belonging, according to 
Ewald, to the last half century before Christ, contain 
significant hints of the future beliefs of Israel. In 
the second chapter of II. Maccabees, verses 4-9, we 
read : " It is also found in the records that Jeremy 
the prophet, being warned of God, commanded the 
tabernacle and the ark to go with him, as he went 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 23 

forth into the mountain where Moses climbed up and 
saw the heritage of God. And when Jeremy came 
thither he found a hollow cave wherein he laid the 
tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense, and 
then stopped the door. And some of those that fol- 
lowed him came to mark the way, but they could not 
find it ; which, when Jeremy perceived, he blamed 
them, saying : As for that place it shall be unknown 
until the time that God gather his people again to- 
gether, and receive them unto mercy. Then shall the 
Lord show them these things, and the glory of the 
Lord shall appear, and the cloud also, as it was showed 
unto Moses." Is it a stretch of conjecture on the 
tenuous thread of fancy to find this reappearance 
described in Revelations XL, 19, in these words : "And 
the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there 
was seen in the temple the ark of his covenant ; and 
there were lightnings, and voices, and thunder- 
ings, and an earthquake, and great hail ? " In the 
twenty-first chapter the seer describes himself as 
" carried away in the spirit to a great and high moun- 
tain " and shown " that great city the Holy Jerusalem, 
descending out of heaven, from God." And he heard 
a great voice out of heaven, saying : " Behold, the 
tabernacle of God is with men ; He will dwell with 
them, and they shall be His people, and God himself 
shall be with them, their God." The heavenly Jeru- 
salem that came from the clouds is the heavenly city, 



24 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

the germ whereof was carried up and hidden in the 
cloud by Jeremy, the prophet. The apocryphal books 
of the Old Testament lodge the ancient Hebraic idea 
in the very heart of the New* 

The earliest phases of the Messianic hope were 
the most exalted in spirituality. As the fortunes of 
the people became entangled with those of other 
states, and the heavy hand of foreign oppression was 
laid upon them, the anticipation lost its religious and 
assumed a. political character. The Messiah assumed 
the aspect of a temporal prince, no other conception 
of him meeting the requirements of the time. The 
dark days had come again, and were more threatening 
than ever. Sixty-three years before the birth of 
Jesus, Pompey the Great, returning from the East, 
flushed with victory, approached Jerusalem. The 
city shut its gates against him, but the resistance, 
though stubborn, was overcome at last, and Judaea 
was, with the rest of the world, swept into the mass 
of the Roman empire. The conqueror, proud but 
magnanimous, spared the people the last humiliation. 
He respected no national scruples, perhaps made a 
point of disregarding them ; he even penetrated' into 
the Holy of Holies, a piece of sacrilegious audacity 
that no Gentile had ventured on before him ; but he 
was considerate of the national spirit in other respects, 
and left the State, in semblance at least, existing. 
He quelled the factions that distracted the country, 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 25 

repaired the ruin caused in the city by the siege, 
restored the injured temple, and departed leaving the 
country in the hands of native rulers, the Empire 
being thrown into the background. In the back- 
ground, however, it lurked, a vast power, holding 
Judaea dependent and tributary. The Jewish state 
was closely bounded and sharply defined ; a portion 
of its wealth was absorbed in taxes. An iron arm 
repressed the insurgent fanaticism that ever and anon 
broke out in zeal for Jehovah. The loyalty that was 
kept alive by religious traditions and was only another 
name for religious enthusiasm, was not allowed ex- 
pression. Still the even pressure of imperial power 
was not cruelly felt, and by the better portion of the 
people was preferred to ceaseless discord and anarchy. 
The lower orders, easily roused tft fanaticism, pro- 
voked the Roman rule to more evident and stringent 
dominion. Julius Caesar, passing by on his way to 
Egypt, paused, saw the situation, and increased the 
authority of Antipater, his representative, whom he 
raised to the dignity of Procurator of Judaea. The 
rule of Antipater was, in the main, just, and com- 
mended itself to the rational friends of the Jewish 
State. He rebuilt the wall which the assaults of war 
had thrown down, pacified the country, and earned by 
his general moderation the praise of the patriotic. 
But Antipater, besides being the representative of a 
Gentile despotism, was of foreign race, an Idumaean, 



26 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

of the abhorred stock of Edom. Spiritual acquies- 
cence in the rule of such a prince was not to be ex- 
pected. 

Antipater was the founder of the Herodian dy- 
nasty. Whatever may have been the ulterior designs 
which the princes of this dynasty had at heart, whether 
they meditated an Eastern Empire centering in Pales- 
tine, Jerusalem being the great metropolis, a purpose 
kept secret in their breasts till such time as events 
might justify them in throwing off the dominion of 
Rome which they had used as an assistance in their 
period of weakness ; or whether they hoped to com- 
bine Church and State in Judaea in such a way that 
each might support the other ; or whether, in their 
passion for splendor, they plotted the subversion of 
religion by the pomp of pagan civilization ; the 
practical result of their dominion was the exasperation 
of the Hebrew spirit. 

Herod, the son of Antipater, deserved, on several 
accounts, the title of Great that history has bestowed 
on him. He was great as a soldier, great as a diplo- 
matist, great as an administrator. Made king in his 
youth ; established in his power by the Roman senate ; 
confirmed in his state by Augustus ; entrusted with 
all but unlimited powers ; absolved from the duty to 
pay tribute to the empire ; his long reign of more 
than forty years was of great moment to the Jewish 
state. Internally he corrupted it, but externally he 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 2J 

beautified it. The superb temple, one of the wonders 
and ornaments of the Eastern world, was of his build- 
ing, and so delicately as well as munificently was it 
done, that the shock of removing the old edifice to 
make room for the new was quite avoided. He 
adorned the city besides, with sumptuous monuments 
and structures. His palaces, theatres, tombs were of 
unexampled magnificence. Nor was his attention 
confined to the city of Jerusalem ; Caesarea was en- 
riched with marble docks and palaces ; Joppa was 
made handsome ; Antonia was fortified. Games and 
feasts relieved the monotony of Eastern life, and 
gratified the Greek taste for splendid gaiety. But 
this was all in the interest of paganism. If he rebuilt 
the temple at Jerusalem, he rebuilt also the temple at 
Samaria. If he made superb the worship of Jehovah 
in the holy city, he encouraged heathen worship in 
the new city of Caesarea. This introduction of Roman 
customs deeply offended the religious sense of the 
nation. Outside the city walls he had an amphi- 
theatre for barbarous games. Inside, he had a 
theatre for Greek plays and dances. The castle, An- 
tonia, well garrisoned, a castle and a palace com- 
bined, commanded the temple square. The Roman 
eagle, fixed upon the front of the temple, was an 
affront that no magnificence or munificence could 
atone for. His private life was not calculated to 
win the favor of a seyerely puritanical people, or 



28 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

persuade them of the advantage of being under im- 
perial dominion. The Greek legends on his coins, 
his ostentatious encouragement of foreign usages and 
people, his rude treatment of Hebrew prejudices, and 
his haughty bearing towards the " first families" added 
bitterness to the misery of foreign sway. 

Yet the situation became worse at his death. For 
his successors had his audacity without his prudence, 
and were disposed, as he was, to be oppressive, without 
being, as he was, magnificent. He did keep the 
nation at peace by his tyranny, if by his cruelty he 
undermined security and provoked the disaffection 
that made peace impossible after him. The last acts 
ascribed to him, the order that the most eminent men 
of the nation should be put to death at his decease, 
and that the infants of Bethlehem, the city of David, 
should be massacred, attest more than the vulgar 
belief in his cruelty ; they bear witness to a convic- 
tion that the spirit of the people was not dead, that the 
despotism of Rome had failed to crush the hope of 
Israel. The death of Herod, which occurred when 
Jesus was a little child, was followed by frightful social 
and political convulsions. For two or three years all 
the elements of disorder were afoot. Between pre- 
tenders to the vacant throne of Herod, and aspirants 
to the Messianic throne of David, Judaea was torn and 
devastated. Revolt assumed the wildest form, the 
higher enthusiasm of faith yielded to the lower fury 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 2g 

of fanaticism ; the celestial visions of a kingdom of 
heaven were completely banished by the smoke and 
flame of political hate. Claimant after claimant of 
the dangerous supremacy of the Messiah appeared, 
pitched a camp in the wilderness, raised the banner, 
gathered a force, was attacked, defeated, banished or 
crucified ; but the frenzy did not abate. Conservative 
Jews, in their despair, sent an embassy to Rome, 
praying for tranquility under the equitable reign of 
law. They wanted no king like Herod, or of Herod's 
line ; they prayed to be delivered from all kings who 
were not themselves subject to imperial responsibility. 
The governor of Syria they would acknowledge. The 
petition was not granted. Herod's three sons, Arche- 
laus, Antipas and Philip divided their father's domi- 
nion between them ; Judaea was made a Roman 
province, subject to taxation like any other. 

The best of the three kings was Philip, who received 
as his portion the North Eastern division, the most 
remote from the centre of disturbance. He was a 
quiet, well-disposed man, who staid at home, attended 
to his own business, developed the resources of his 
dominion, and showed himself a father to his people. 
Caesarea Philippi was built by him ; Bethsaida was 
rebuilt. Antipas, called also Herod, was appointed 
ruler over Galilee and Peraea ; a cunning, unprincipled 
man, nicknamed " the fox ; " despotic and wilful, like 
his father, and like his father, fond of display. He 



30 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

built Dio Caesarea, as it was afterwards called, and 
Tiberias, on the sea of Galilee. He too was a good 
deal of a pagan, and deeply outraged the Hebrew con- 
science by repudiating his wife, the daughter of 
Aretas, an Arabian king, and marrying the wife of 
his half-brother, Philip. He was an oriental despot, 
superstitious, luxurious, sensual, wilful and weak ; quite 
destitute of the statesmanship required in the ruler 
of a turbulent province, where special care and skill 
were necessary to reconcile the order of civil govern- 
ment with the aspiration after theocratic supremacy. 
The spiritual fear, which compelled him to stand in 
awe of religious enthusiasm, put him on more than half 
earnest quest of prophetic messengers, made him curi- 
ous about miracles and signs, and anxious not to offend 
needlessly the higher powers, was incessantly at war 
with the self-regarding policy which resented the 
smallest encroachment on his own authority. To 
maintain his ducal state, and meet the cost of his pub- 
lic and private extravagance, he imposed heavy taxes, 
and collected them in an unscrupulous fashion, which 
made him and the empire he represented extremely 
unpopular. Jealous of his prerogative, and ambitious 
of regal rank, he brought himself into disagreeable 
collision with the aspirations of the people he gov- 
erned. His immediate neighborhood to the centres 
of Jewish enthusiasm, — he lived in the very heart of 
it, for Galilee was the seat and headquarters of Hebrew 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 3 1 

radicalism — made his every movement felt. In him 
the spirit of the Roman empire was, in the belief of 
the people, incarnate. 

The oldest brother, Archelaus, held the chief 
position, bore the highest title, received the 
largest tribute, more than a million of dollars, 
and resided in Judaea, nearer the political cen- 
tre of the country. His reign was short. His 
cruelty and lawlessness, his disregard of private and 
public decencies raised his subjects against him. 
Augustus, on an appeal to Rome for redress, sum- 
moned him to his presence, listened to the charges 
and the defence, and banished him to Gaul. This 
was in the year 6 of our era, only three years after the 
death of Herod. The reign of his brothers, Philip 
and Antipas, covered the period of the life of Jesus. 

The " taxing " which excited the wildest uproar 
against the Roman power, took place at this period, 
— A. D. 7, — ■ under Cyrenius or Quirinus, governor 
of Syria ; it was the first general tax laid directly by 
the imperial government, and it raised a furious storm 
of opposition. The Hebrew spirit was stung into 
exasperation ; the puritans of the nation, the enthu- 
siasts, fanatics, the zealots of the law, the literal 
constructionists of prophecy, appealed to the national 
temper, revived the national faith, and fanned into 
flame the combustible elements that smouldered in 
the bosom of the race. A native Hebrew party was 



32 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

formed, on the idea that Judea was for the Jews ; 
that the rule of the Gentile was ungodly ; that all 
support given to it was disloyalty to Jehovah. The 
popular feeling broke out in open rebellion ; the fana- 
ticism of the "zealots" affected the whole nation. Who- 
ever had the courage to draw the sword in the name 
of the Messiah was sure of a following, though there 
was no chance that the uprising would end in any- 
thing but blood and worse oppression. The most 
extravagant expectations were cherished of miraculous 
furtherance and superhuman aid. The popular ima- 
gination, inflamed by rhetoric taken from Daniel, 
Enoch, and other apocryphal books, went beyond all 
sober limits. The primary conditions of divine assis- 
tance, sanctity, fidelity, patience, meekness of trust, 
reverence for the Lord's will, were neglected and for- 
gotten ; the promise alone was kept in view ; the 
word of Jehovah was alone remembered ; his com- 
mand was disregarded. But the Lord's promise was 
not kept. Every new uprising was followed by fresh 
impositions ; the detestable dominion was fastened 
upon the people more hopelessly than ever. The 
temper of the domination became bitter and con- 
temptuous, as it had not been before. The name 
of Jew was synonymous to Roman ears with vulgar 
fanaticism. 

In place of Archelaus, Augustus sent procurators, 
as they were called, Coponius, Marcus Ambivius, 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 33 

Annius Rufus. The country was generally tranquil 
under their short administrations ; but the internal 
feuds were not pacified. The enthusiasm of the Jews 
provoked the malignity of the Samaritans, who, having 
been longer wonted to foreign rule, less resented it, 
and were not unwilling to put themselves in league 
with the despot to crush an ancient foe. It is related 
that during the administration of Coponius, some evil- 
minded Samaritans, stole into the open temple of 
Jerusalem, on the passover night, and threw human 
bones into the holy place. The building was dese- 
crated for the season and must be purified by special 
sacrifices before it could be used again. The das- 
tardly act was associated, in the minds of the people, 
with the insulting degradations of the Gentile power, 
and the spirit of rebellion was exasperated. 

Augustus died A. D. 14, and was succeeded by 
Tiberius, whose policy towards Judaea, was not op- 
pressive so much as contemptuous. He was too 
merciful to the " sick man " to drive away the carrion 
flies that were already surfeited, and let in a fresh 
swarm of blood-suckers. His viceroys enjoyed along 
term of office and plundered at leisure. Pontius 
Pilate was appointed to this position in the year 
26, about four years before the public appearance 
of Jesus, and was kept there till the year 37. 
He was, in many respects, a good administrator: 
overbearing, of course, for he was a Roman ; his sub- 

3 



34 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

jects were by nature, irritating, and by reputation, 
factious. He was greedy of gain, though not rapa- 
cious or extortionate ; not a man of high principle ; 
not a sympathetic or sentimental man, cold, indiffer- 
ent, apathetic rather ; still, moderate, and, on the 
whole, just ; liable to mistakes through stubbornness 
and imprudence, but neither cruel, jealous, nor vindic- 
tive. The reputation of being all these was easily 
earned by a man in his position ; for the Jews were 
sensitive, not easily satisfied, and disposed to con- 
strue unfavorably any acts of a foreign ruler. As 
viceroys went, Pilate was not a bad man, nor was he 
a bad specimen of his class. The smallest impru- 
dence might precipitate riot in Jerusalem. On one 
occasion, the troops from Samaria, coming to winter 
at Jerusalem, were allowed to carry, emblazoned on 
their banner, the image of the emperor, to which the 
Roman soldiers attached a sacred character. The 
sight of the idolatrous standard on the morning of 
its first exhibition created great excitement. A riot 
broke forth at once ; a deputation waited on the gov- 
ernor at Caesarea, to protest against the outrage and 
demand the removal of the sacrilege. Pilate firmly 
withstood the supplicants, thinking the honor of the 
emperor at stake. Five days and five nights the pe- 
titioners stayed, pressing their demand. On the sixth 
day, the governor, wearied by their importunity and 
resolved to put an end to the annoyance, had his 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 35 

judgment-seat placed on the race-course, ordered 
troops to lie concealed in the near neighborhood, and 
awaited the visit of the Jews. The deputation came 
as usual with their complaint ; at a signal, the soldiers 
appeared and surrounded the suppliants, while the 
procurator threatened them with instant death, if 
they did not at once retire to their homes. The stern 
puritans, nothing daunted, threw themselves at his 
feet, stretched out their necks, and cried : ' It were 
better to die than to submit to insult to our holy 
laws.' The astonished governor yielded, and the in- 
signia were removed. 

On another occasion Pilate was made sensible of 
the inflammable character of the people with whom he 
had to deal. He had allowed the construction, per- 
haps only the restoration, of a costly aqueduct to sup- 
ply the city, but more especially the temple buildings, 
with pure water. It was built at the instance of 
the Sanhedrim and the priests, to whom an abundance 
of water was a prime necessity. In consideration of 
this fact, as well as of the circumstance that the benefit 
of the improvement accrued wholly to the Jewish peo- 
ple, it seemed to Pilate no more than just that the ex- 
pense should be defrayed from moneys in the temple 
treasury that were set apart for such purposes. There 
is no evidence that his action was unreasonable or his 
method of pursuing it offensive ; but clamors at once 
arose against his project, and on occasion of his com- 



2)6 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

ing to Jerusalem a tumultuous crowd pressed on him, 
and insulting epithets were flung at him from the 
rabble. To still and scatter them soldiers were sent, 
in ordinary dress, with clubs in their hands, their 
w r eapons being concealed, to overawe the malcontents. 
This failing, and the tumult increasing, the signal of 
attack was given ; the soldiers fell to with a will ; 
blood was shed ; innocent and guilty suffered alike. 
As this occurred on a feast day, near the Prcetorium, 
and not far from the temple itself, it is quite possible 
that the sacred precincts were disturbed by the uproar, 
and that the stain of blood touched consecrated 
pavement. The popular mind, excited and maddened, 
seized on the occurrence, represented it as a deliberate 
affront on the part of the governor, and charged him 
with mingling the blood of innocent people with the 
sacrifices they were offering to Jehovah. It is not 
unlikely that the " tower of Siloam " which fell, 
crushing eighteen citizens, was a part of this very 
aqueduct wall, and its fall may have been and probably 
was, regarded as a judgment on the work and on all 
who countenanced it. That it made- a profound im- 
pression on the popular imagination appears in the 
gospel narratives written many years afterwards. 
Ewald supposes that this accident happened at an 
early stage of the work, and was a leading cause of the 
fanatical outbreak that expressed the popular dis- 
content. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 2)7 

Philo tells a story of Pilate's administration, so 
characteristic that it deserves repeating, although, as 
Ewald remarks, it may be another version of the inci- 
dent of the standards. Ewald, however, is inclined to 
think it a distinct occurrence. According to this 
narrative, Pilate, in honor of the emperor, and in ac- 
cordance with a custom prevalent throughout the 
empire, especially in the East, caused to be set up in 
a conspicuous place in Jerusalem, two votive shields 
of gold, one bearing the name of Tiberius, the other 
his own. The shields had nothing on them but the 
names ; no image, no inscription, no idolatrous em- 
blem, simply the two names. But even this was 
resented by the fiery populace who could not endure 
the lightest intimation of their subjection to a Gentile 
power. The indignation reached the aristocracy ; at 
least, the force of the movement did ; and the sons of 
Herod, all four of them, accompanied by members of 
the first families and city officials, formally waited on 
Pilate to demand the removal of the tablets, and on 
his refusal went to Rome to lay the matter before 
Tiberius, who granted, on his part, the request. Be 
the incident as recorded true or not, the record of it 
by so near a contemporary and so clear a judge as 
Philo, throws a strong light on the situation, brings 
the two parties into bold relief, as they confront one 
another, and affords a glimpse into the secret workings 
of Hebrew political motives. 



38 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

The pressure of the Roman authority was inces- 
sant and severe, though the apparatus of it was kept 
in the background. The governor held his court and 
head-quarters at Csesarea, a seaport town on the Med- 
iterranean, about mid-way between Joppa on the 
south, and the promontory of Carmel on the north, 
admirably situated with regard to Rome, on the one 
side, and Palestine on the other. For strategic pur- 
poses the place was well chosen. The military force 
in the country was not large — about a thousand men 
— but it was effectively disposed. The castle of Anto- 
nia, in the city of Jerusalem, contained a garrison judi- 
ciously small, but sufficient for an exigency. The vice- 
roy was present in the Holy City on public days when 
great assemblages of people, gathered together under 
circumstances provocative of insurrection, required 
closer watch than usual. He had a residence there, 
and a judgment-seat on a marble balcony in front of 
the palace ; he exercised regal powers, held the issues 
of life and death, could depose priests of any order ; 
in short, ruled the subject people with as much con- 
sideration as the peculiar circumstances of the case 
demanded, but no more. The people were never per- 
mitted to forget their subject condition. The hated 
tax-gatherer went his rounds, exacting tribute to the 
empire. The evolutions of soldiers gave an aspect of 
omnipresence to the foreign dominion. The hope of 
deliverance lost its spiritual character, and took on 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 39 

decidedly a political shape. The anticipation of the 
Messiah became less ideal, but more intense. The 
armed figure of king David haunted the dreams of 
fanatics ; even the angels that hovered before the im- 
agination of gentler enthusiasts wore breast-plates 
and had swords in their hands. The kingdom looked 
for was no reign of truth, mercy, and kindness, but a 
reign of force, for force alone could meet force. 



III. 

THE SECTS. 

The popular aspect of the Messianic hope was polit- 
ical, not religious or moral. The name " Messiah," was 
synonymous with " King of the Jews ; "' it suggested 
political designs and aspirations. Thj assumption 
of that character by any individual drew on him the 
vigilance of the police. In this condition of affairs 
the public sentiment was divided between the Con- 
servatives and the Radicals. The first party com- 
prised the wea] thy, settled, permanent, cautious people 
whose patriotism was tinged with prudent reflection. 
They saw the hopelessness of revolt, its inevitable 
failure, and the worse tyranny that would follow its 
bloody suppression ; they put generous interpretations 
on the acts and intentions of the imperial power, did 
justice and a little more than literal justice to acts 
of clemency or forbearance, appreciated the value of 
the Roman supremacy in preserving internal quiet 
and keeping other plunderers at a distance ; and had 
confidence that patience and diplomacy would accom- 
plish what force could not undertake. They were 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 41 

careful, therefore, to maintain a good understanding 
with the powers that were, and frowned on all at- 
tempts to revive the national spirit. 

The conservatives were of all shades of opinion, 
and of all parties ; the radicals were, as is usually the 
case, confined mostly to those who had little to lose, 
either of wealth, reputation, or social position. The 
supremacy of Israel, the restoration of the Jewish 
Commonwealth, the overthrow of the wealthy and 
powerful, the reinstatement of the poor, the unlet- 
tered, the weak, the suffering, the downtrodden " chil- 
dren of Abraham," composed the group of ideas which 
made up the sum of their intellectual life. The Ro- 
man dominion was abhorred not because it was cruel, 
but because it was sacrilegious. Diplomacy, with 
these, was another word for time-serving ; policy an- 
other phrase for cowardice ; they detested prudence 
as ignoble ; they distrusted conciliation as apostacy ; 
they put the worst construction on the fairest seem- 
ing deeds, dreading nothing so much as agreement 
between the chief men of Israel and the minions of 
the empire. 

The educated and responsible classes were chiefly 
conservative. No sect was so entirely, for no sect 
comprised all of these classes ; but some sects were 
naturally more conservative than others. The Sad- 
ducees were, on the whole, the most so ; not by reason 
of their creed particularly, but through the influence 



42 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

of their historical antecedents. After the capture of 
Jerusalem by Ptolemy, 320 B. C, some hundred 
thousand Jews went to Egypt and attained conse- 
quence there ; had their own religious rites and tem- 
ple. Contact with Greek thought and life there en- 
larged their minds. Their old-fashioned Hebraism 
seemed strait and prim by the side of the splendid 
exuberance of Gentile life in Alexandria. Jerusalem 
looked, in the distance, like a provincial town ; the 
wealth of pagan literature dwarfed their Scriptures to 
the dimensions of a single deep but narrow tradition. 
They w r ere Jews still, but bigoted Jews no longer. 
How unreasonable seemed now the prejudices of ex- 
clusive race! how unwise the attempts to maintain 
peculiarities of custom ! how fanatical the efforts to 
impose them upon others ! The world was large and 
various : the order of the world followed the track of 
no one lawgiver, prophet or saint. 

The sect of Sadducees is supposed to have risen 
from this pagan soil. It was a sect of rationalists, 
free-thinkers, skeptics, eclectics ; Jews, but not dog- 
matists of any school. They believed in culture and 
general progress, and had the characteristic traits of 
men so believing. They were cool, unimpassioned, 
scientific ; sentimentalism they abjured ; enthusiasm 
to them was folly. They were glad to graft Greek 
culture on Hebrew thought, and would not have 
been sorry to see the small Hebrew state absorbed 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 43 

by some world-wide civilization. Moses they revered, 
and his law; but the aftergrowth, priestly and pro- 
phetic, they discarded. No doubt they thought the 
priests superstitious, the prophets mad, the restora- 
tionists a set of fools, the vision of Israel's future 
supremacy the mischievous nightmare of distempered 
minds. As a literary class the Sadducees were few 
and select ; aristocratic in taste, supercilious in man- 
ners. They were in favor with the governors placed 
over the people by Roman authority, on account of 
their cultured moderation ; and in return for social 
and political support, received offices in the State, 
and even in the Church. Caiaphas, the high priest 
in the time of Jesus, was a Sadducee, and was raised 
to that dignity by Valerius Gratus, Pilate's predeces- 
sor in office. 

The Sadducee was a man of the world ; not in the 
bad sense, but in the strict sense of the term. Dis- 
believing in immortality, he confined his view to the 
possibilities of the time ; disbelieving in angels and 
special providences, he put confidence in temporal 
powers ; disbelieving the doctrine of divine decrees 
and manifest destiny, he pursued the calculations of 
policy and held himself within the reasonable compass 
of human motives. Compromisers on principle, the 
Sadducees were unpopular in a community of earnest 
Jews. They bore bad names, were called epicureans, 
sensualists, materialists, cold-blooded aristocrats, allies 



44 TH E CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

of despotism ; but they deserved these abusive appel- 
lations no more than men of the same description in 
modern states deserve them. The abusive epithet was 
one of the penalties they had to pay for the intel- 
lectual and social consequence they enjoyed. 

The Pharisees were more numerous, more com- 
monplace and more popular. They were, in fact, the 
great popular sect. They were of more recent origin 
than the Sadducees, their history going back only 
about a century and a half before the time of Jesus. 
Their name, which means " exclusive " or " elect," 
"set apart," sufficiently indicates their character. 
They were the "strait" sect; Hebrews of the He- 
brews ; Puritans of the Puritans ; the quintessence of 
theocratic fervor and patriotic faith ; the true Israel. 
Strict constructionists they were ; friends to the law 
and the testimony ; worshippers of the letter and the 
form ; painstaking preservers of every iota of the writ- 
ten word ; firm believers in the destiny of Israel, in 
the special providence that could accomplish it, in the 
angelic powers whose agency might be needed to ful- 
fil it, in the future life when it was to be fulfilled. 
They held to the law, and they held to the prophets, 
major and minor; they could divide the word of the 
Lord to a hair. 

The Pharisees have usually been called a sect ; 
they were not so much a sect as a party. Church 
and State being one in the conception of a the- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 45 

ocracy, or government of God, the devotee and the 
politician were the same person ; the dogmatist was 
the democrat; the man of narrowest creed was the 
man of widest sympathies ; the most exclusive theo- 
logian was the most popular partisan. To keep Israel 
true to the faith, and, in consequence of that to save 
it from political decline, was, from the first, the Pha- 
risee's mission. He never lost it from his view. His 
eye was steadily fixed on the issues of the day, as 
they involved the destinies of the future. In order 
that he might be a patriot, he was anxious to preserve 
unimpaired his puritanism ; and in order that he 
might preserve his puritanism unimpaired, he attended 
diligently to the duties of patriotism. 

The Pharisee cherished the Messianic hope. It 
was part of his faith in the destiny of Israel, and the 
great practical justification of his belief in the resur- 
rection of the dead ; he believed in personal immor- 
tality, because he believed in the Christ who would 
come to bestow it. It was an article of the patriot's 
creed ; the joy of the Messianic felicity being the 
reward for fidelity to Israel. The hope presented to 
him its political aspect, that being the aspect really 
fascinating to patriotic contemplation. The moral 
and spiritual aspects were incidental to this. In fact 
the moral and spiritual aspects were scarcely thought 
of. It was reserved for Christianity to develop these 
when the literal doctrine had lost its interest, and the 



4-6 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

heavenly kingdom had been transported from the 
earth to the skies. A thousand and a half of years 
have not spiritualized the belief with the multitude. 
Still the Pharisaic doctrine is the accepted faith ; a 
purely rational human faith in immortality is enter- 
tained by the philosophical few. The Pharisees con- 
stituted a sort of Young Men's Hebrew Association, 
loosely organized for the maintenance of the faith 
and the fulfilment of the destiny of Israel. 

But while all Pharisees shared the same general 
beliefs, all were not of the same mind on questions of 
immediate policy. They were divided into conserva- 
tive and radical wings. The conservatives, whether 
from temperament, position, conviction, or selfish 
interest, deprecated sudden or violent measures which 
would defeat their own ends and make a bad state of 
things worse. They counselled moderation, patience, 
acquiescence in the actual and inevitable. They dis- 
countenanced the open expressions of discontent, ad- 
vised submission to law, and preached the duty of 
strict religious observance as the proper preparation, 
on their part, for the providential advent of the Son 
of Man. No doubt this policy was prompted in many 
cases by timidity, and in many cases by time-serving 
craft ; but no doubt it was in many cases suggested 
by sober statesmanship. The conservative Pharisee 
was even less popular than the Sadducee ; for the 
Sadducee pretended to no belief in Israel's providen- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 47 

tial destiny, and to no sympathy with Israel's Mes- 
sianic hope ; while the Pharisee made conspicuous 
protestation of orthodox zeal. Evidence of the popu- 
lar dislike of the conservative Pharisee abounds. He 
was looked upon as a renegade. He was called pre- 
tender and hypocrite, wolf in sheep's clothing, a 
whited sepulchre. He was ridiculed and lampooned. 
All manner of heartlessness was charged against him, 
as being a monster of inhumanity. " The Talmud," 
says Deutsch, " inveighs even more bitterly and caus- 
tically than the New Testament, against what it calls 
'the plague of Pharisaism ;' 'the dyed ones,' 'who do 
evil deeds, like Zimri, and require a goodly reward, 
like Phinehas ; ' ' who preach beautifully, but behave 
unbeautifully.' " Their artificial interpretations, their 
divisions and sub-divisions, their attitudes and pos- 
turings were parodied and caricatured. The conven- 
tional Pharisee was classed under one of six cate- 
gories : he did the will of God, but from interested 
motives ; he was forever doing the will of God, but 
never accomplishing it ; he performed absurd pen- 
naces to avoid imaginary sins ; he accepted office in 
the character of saint ; he sanctimoniously begged his 
neighbor to mention some duty he had inadvertently 
omitted, his design being to seem faithful in all things 
when he was faithful in nothing ; or, if sincerely de- 
vout, he was devout from fear. He had no credit 
given him for his virtues, and more than due discredit 



48 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

for his vices. In time of peril the conservatives out- 
numbered the radicals, for radicalism was dangerous ; 
and the feeling between the two classes was the 
bitterer on this account; the conservatives hating 
the radicals whom they could not disown, the radicals 
despising the conservatives who were their brothers 
in faith. Each party compromised the other pre- 
cisely where misapprehension was most exasperating. 

For the radicalism of the time was exclusively, we 
may say, pharisaic. There was no other of any con- 
siderable account. None but believers in the restora- 
tion of Israel, in the triumphant vindication of her 
faith in a new and complete social order and in abso- 
lute political independence ; none but believers in 
divine interposition, and a personal resurrection of 
the faithful for the enjoyment of felicity in the Mes- 
sianic kingdom ; none but devout students of the 
scripture, recipients of the whole tradition, visionaries 
of the literal or spiritual order, could entertain so 
audacious a hope ; and all these were Pharisees. 

The Essenes, a mystical and secluded sect, dwelt 
apart, took no interest in public affairs, and exerted 
no influence on public opinion. Peculiar in their 
usages, secret in their proceedings, contemplative in 
their habits, quietists and dreamers, they so trans- 
figured and sublimated the views which they shared 
with their compatriots, that no point of practical con- 
tact was visible. From them no prophet or reformer 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 49 

came. The soul of the Hebrew faith was all they 
recognized ; the body of it they were indifferent to. 
That in many respects their doctrines, precepts, 
social usages and religious practices corresponded with 
those held by conscientious Jews, need not be ques- 
tioned. It does not follow that they originated or 
communicated them. Such opinions were simply 
adopted as a common inheritance. The Essenes 
rather withdrew than imparted their, belief. All the 
ingenuity of DeQuincey is unavailing to establish a 
practical relation between the Essenes and any popu- 
lar movement in Judaea. These movements were led 
by the more enthusiastic of the Pharisees, and fol- 
lowed by the multitude that shared their ideas. 

The "lawyers" and "scribes," Pharisees for the 
most part by profession, were in consequence of their 
profession, conservative. Men of learning, well 
balanced in mind, carefully educated, good linguists, 
masters often in theology, philosophy, moral science, 
familiar as any were with natural history, the mathe- 
matics, botany, engaged in the study and exposition 
of the sacred books, they were from the scholastic 
nature of their pursuits, disinclined to take part in 
popular reforms. There were no zealots among them ; 
they were men of moderate opinions and calm tem- 
pers, capable of stubborn resistance to the elements 
of agitation, but incapable of vehement sympathies 

with enthusiasm. 

4 



50 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

The " Herodians," were a limited and never a 
popular party, who hoped that, in some way, the de- 
liverance of Israel might come through the family of 
Herod, as being Jews but not bigots, of foreign 
extraction but of oriental genius, whose dynasty had 
been, and might again be, independent of Rome. 
These men were interested in public affairs, watched 
narrowly the signs of the times in politics, but 
were as jealous on the one side, of popular outbreaks, 
as they were on the other, of imperial domination. 
Deliverance, in their judgment, was to come by diplo- 
macy, not by enthusiasm. They had no religious 
creed that distinguished them as a party. Some may 
have been Sadducees ; more, probably were Pharisees ; 
but whether Pharisees or Sadducees, they were in no 
danger of being demagogues or the dupes of dema- 
gogues. The party was in existence at the period of 
Jesus; but it could not have been strong. Its influ- 
ence, if it ever had any, was declining with the 
decreasing significance of the Herodian line. We hear 
little of them in the literature of the time ; with the 
final and absolute supremacy of Rome, they disap- 
peared. The casual mention of them, once in Mat- 
thew and once in Mark, on the same occasion, and 
in connection with the Pharisees, is evidence that they 
were still in existence late in the first century. That 
is their last appearance. 



IV. 

THE MESSIAH IN THE NEW TESTA- 
MENT. 

The earliest writings of the New Testament, the 
genuine letters of Paul, written not far from the year 
60, thirty years more or less after the received date of 
the crucifixion of Jesus, take up and continue the line 
of Jewish tradition. No traces exist of Hterature pro- 
duced between the opening of the century and the 
epistolary activity of the apostle of the Gentiles. The 
times were unfavorable to the production and the 
preservation of literary work. The earliest gospels, 
even granting their genuineness and authenticity, can- 
not be assigned to so early a period, cannot be crowd- 
ed back beyond the year 70, and must probably be 
placed later by ten, fifteen, twenty years. They bear 
evidently on their pages the impress of ideas which 
Paul made current. Their authors, when not disci- 
ples of his school, respected it and had regard to its 
claim. The gospel of Luke betrays, in its whole 
structure the shaping hand of a Pauline adherent. Its 
catholicity, its anti-Judaic spirit, its frequent and ap- 



52 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

proving mention of Samaritans, its doctrine of demons 
and powers of the infernal world, its constant recogni- 
tion in precept and parable of the claims of the heathen 
on the salvation of the Christ, are a few of the plain 
marks of a genius foreign td that of Palestine. The 
gospel of Mark is similarly though not so eminently 
or so minutely characterized. Even the gospel of 
Matthew contains deposits from this formation. The 
language of one verse in the eleventh chapter, — " All 
things are delivered unto me of My Father ; and no 
man knoweth the Son, but the Father, neither know- 
eth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to 
whom the Son will reveal him," confesses in every 
word, its Pauline origin. The passage lies like a 
boulder on a common. 

Though concerned with a period anterior to the 
apostle's conversion, with events whereof he had no 
knowledge, and with a life from which he professed to 
derive only his impulse, the gospels are written, not in 
the style of chronicles or memoirs, but in the style of 
disquisitions rather. Far from being the artless, guile- 
less, unstudied compositions they have passed for, 
they are imbued with an atmosphere of reflection, are 
ingeniously elaborate and, in parts painfully studied. 
They are meditated biographies, in which the bio- 
graphical material is selected and qualified by specula- 
tive motives. Nevertheless, these are the only 
fragments presumably of historical character that we 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 53 

possess. The period that Paul's ministry supposes 
must be searched for in these after-minded books. 
Hence arise grave literary difficulties. Several points 
must be borne in mind ; the absence of any contem- 
poraneous account of the ministry of Jesus ; the utter 
dearth of early memoranda ; the advanced age of the 
evangelists at the time they wrote, even on the com- 
mon reckoning, and the effect of age in weakening- 
recollection, suggesting fancies, raising queries, inflam- 
ing imaginations, making the mind receptive of 
theories and marvels ; the influence on the disciples 
and on the intellectual world of a man so powerful as 
Paul, and the altered speculative climate of the later 
apostolic age. The literary laws forbid under these 
circumstances our reading the gospel narratives as 
authentic histories — constrain us in fact to read them, 
in some sort, as disquisitions, making allowance as we 
go along, for the infusion of doctrinal elements. 

The actual Jesus is, thus understood, inaccessible 
to scientific research. His image cannot be recovered. 
He left no memorial in writing of himself ; his fol- 
lowers were illiterate ; the mind of his age was con- 
fused. Paul received only traditions of him, how 
definite we have no means of knowing, apparently not 
significant enough to be treasured, nor consistent 
enough to oppose a barrier to his own speculations- 
The character of Jesus is a fair subject for discussion 
and conjecture ; but at this stage in a literary study such 



54 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

discussion and conjecture would be out of place. We 
have at present simply to inquire into the character of 
the Messianic hope as it was illustrated in the ante- 
Pauline period. This task is less difficult, and may be 
accomplished without detriment to moral or spiritual 
qualities which Jesus may have possessed. 

The earliest phase of the Messianic hope in the 
New Testament must have corresponded with prev- 
alent expectations of Israel in the early period of our 
first century. What that was has been described. The 
" Son of Man " of Matthew, Mark and Luke, their 
Pauline elements being eliminated, meets the require- 
ments in every respect, and in no particular tran- 
scends them. He is a radical Pharisee who has at 
heart the enfranchisement of his people. He is re- 
presented as being a native of Galilee, the insurgent 
district of the country ; nurtured, if not born in 
Nazareth, one of its chief cities ; reared as a youth 
amid traditions of patriotic devotion, and amid scenes 
associated with heroic dreams and endeavors. The 
Galileans were restless, excitable people, beyond the 
reach of conventionalities, remote from the centre of 
power ecclesiastical and secular, simple in their lives, 
bold of speech, independent in thought, thorough- 
going in the sort of radicalism that is common among 
people who live "out of the world," who have leisure 
to discuss the exciting topics of the day, but too little 
knowledge, culture, or sense of social responsibility to 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 55 

discuss them soundly. Their mental discontent and 
moral intractability were proverbial. They were 
belligerents. The Romans had more trouble with 
them than with the natives of any other province. 
The Messiahs all started out from Galilee, and never 
failed to collect followers round their standard. The 
Galileans more than others, lived in the anticipation 
of the Deliverer. The reference of the Messiah to 
Galilee is therefore already an indication of the char- 
acter he is to assume. 

Another indication, equally pointed, is the brief 
association with Bethlehem, the city of David, and 
the pains taken to connect the Messiah with the royal 
line. The early traditions go out of their way to 
prove this. A labored genealogy is invented to show 
the path of his descent. Prophecy and song are 
called in to ratify his lineage. Inspired lips repeat 
ancient psalms announcing the glory that is to come 
to the House of David. An angel promises Mary 
that her son shall have given unto him " the throne 
of his father, David, and shall reign over the house of 
Jacob for ever." The Messiah is called the " Son of 
David ; " an appellation that carried the idea of tem- 
poral dominion and no other. The legends respect- 
ing the massacre of the children in Bethlehem and 
the flight into Egypt, belong to the same circle of 
prediction. 

Another indication to the same purpose is the 



56 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

patient effort to represent the Messiah as fulfilling Old 
Testament anticipations. "That the scripture might 
be fulfilled " is the reiterated explanation of his ordi- 
nary actions. The earliest records miss no occasion 
for declaring the Messiah's fidelity to the law of Moses. 
Among the first words put into his mouth is the earn- 
est 'protestation : "Think not that I am come to 
destroy the law and the prophets ; I am not come to 
destroy but to establish ; " and this statement is fol- 
lowed by a detailed contrast between the literal and 
the spiritual interpretation of the law, precisely in the 
vein of the prophets who held themselves to be the 
true friends of the code which the priests and formal- 
ists perverted. There is nothing in this criticism dis- 
respectful to the commandments, or beyond the mark 
of orthodox scripture. 

The visit to the Baptist, who, entertaining the 
popular notion of the Messiah, and believing in his 
speedy advent, welcomed Jesus to the vacant posi- 
tion ; Jesus' response to the call, and acceptance of 
the role, are in the same vein. Let it not be forgot- 
ten that the later misgivings of the Baptist were 
raised by the apparent failure of the Messiah to justify 
expectation ; that John, from his prison, sends a sharp 
message, and that the Messiah, instead of correcting 
the precursor's crude idea, simply bids him be patient 
and construe the signs in faith. 

The story of the Temptation in the Wilderness, 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 57 

closely patterned after incidents in the career of 
Moses, is calculated to join the two closely by simi- 
larity of experience. That the Messiah should be 
tempted is quite within the circle of later Jewish con- 
ceptions, as the literature of the Talmud proves. 

The story of the Transfiguration derives its 
point from the circumstance that the spirits with 
whom the chosen one held communion were Moses 
and Elias, the law-giver and the prophet of the old 
dispensation. 

The phrase " Kingdom of Heaven," so frequent 
on the Messiah's lips, had but one meaning, which 
was universally understood. It described a temporal 
rule, the reign of a prince of David's line. No class 
of people accepted the phrase in any different sense. 
The Christ nowhere corrects the vulgar opinion, or 
places his own in opposition to it. The evangelist 
intends to convey the idea that he is in full accord 
with the general feeling. 

The questions put to the Messiah and the answers 
given to them are additional evidence of this assent ; 
the question, for example, concerning the obligation to 
pay tribute to the Roman government, a test question 
touching the very heart of Jewish patriotism, and the 
cautious reply, calculated to evade the peril of a cate- 
gorical declaration which was felt to be called for, and 
to be due. The rejoinder of the Christ is designed 
to satisfy the popular expectation without raising 



58 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

popular uproar. It is the answer of a patriot, but not 
of a zealot. Had the Messiah not corresponded to 
the image in the Jewish imagination, the inquiry 
might have been summarily dismissed. Its evasion 
proves not that the Christ transcended the average 
expectation, but that he shared it. The version of 
the incident given in Matthew XVII, confirms this 
judgment ; for according to that account the Messiah 
privately admits the exemption from tribute, and then 
provides miraculously for its payment, " lest we 
should give offence." 

The nature of the excitement caused by the 
Messiah is another evidence of the spirit in which he 
wrought. Everywhere he is greeted as the Messiah, 
the son of David ; everywhere the multitudes flock to 
him, as to the expected king. His intimate friends 
are never disabused of the notion that they, if they 
continue firm in their allegiance, will hold places of 
honor at his right hand. He reminds them of the 
stringency of the conditions, but does not condemn 
the idea. An ambitious mother presents her two sons 
as candidates for preferment, asking for them seats 
at his right and left hand, on his coming to glory. 
He rebukes the selfishness of the ambition, says that 
seats of honor are for those that earn them, not for 
those that desire them, adding that he has no au- 
thority to assign places even to the worthiest ; but he 
does not discountenance the notion that he shall sit 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 59 

in glory, that there will be places of honor on either 
side of him, or that the faithful servants will occupy 
them. Indeed, his reply confirms that anticipation. 

The multitude, impressed by his claim, desire to 
make him a king. He removes himself ; not because 
he repudiates all right to the office, he nowhere hints 
that, and in places he more than hints the contrary, 
— but because he is not prepared to avow his pre- 
tension. The time is not ripe for a manifesto. 

The writers about this period take especial pains 
to limit the conception of the Messiah within the 
boundaries of the average patriotic ideal. They make 
him declare to the twelve disciples, as he sends them 
forth, that before they shall have carried their mes- 
sage to the cities of Israel the Son of Man would 
announce himself. On a later occasion he is made 
to say : " There are some here who will not taste of 
death till they see the Son of Man coming in his 
glory." Declarations like these are pointedly incon- 
sistent with an intellectual or moral idea of the 
kingdom. The notion of progress, instruction, regen- 
erating influence, gradual elevation through the power 
of character, is precluded. The kingdom is to come 
in time, suddenly, unexpectedly, by a shock of super- 
natural agency, at the instant the Lord wills ; the 
Son of Man himself knows not when, for it is not 
dependent on his activity as a reformer, his success 
as a teacher, or his influence as a person, but on the 
decree of Jehovah. 



60 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

The attempt on the popular feeling in Jerusalem, 
strangely called the triumphal entrance of the Messiah 
into the holy city, is unintelligible except as a polit- 
ical demonstration ; whether projected by the Christ 
or by his followers, or by the Christ urged by the 
importunate expectations of his followers, whether 
undertaken hopefully or in desperation, it nowhere 
appears that it was made in any moral or spiritual 
interest. All the incidents of the narrative point to 
a political end, the public assertion of the Christ's 
Messianic claim. The ass, used instead of the chariot 
or the horse by royalty on state occasions, and 
especially alluded to by the prophet Zechariah in con- 
nexion with the coming of Zion's King ; the palm 
branches and hosannahs, emblems of sacred majesty; 
the cries of the attendant throng loudly proclaiming 
the Messiah ; the Galilaean composition of the crowd, 
marking the revolutionary temper of it ; the blank 
reception of the pageant by the citizens who were too 
wary to commit themselves to the chances of collision 
with the Roman authorities ; the complete failure of 
the demonstration in the heart of conservative Judaea; 
the bearing of the Christ himself as of one conscious 
of a sublime but perilous mission ; all these things 
find ready explanation, by the popular conception of 
the Messiah, as a national deliverer, but are unintelli- 
gible on any other theory. 

The unspiritual character of the Messiah's attitude 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 6l 

is made yet more apparent as the history draws to a 
close. The violent purging of the temple can only 
by great vigor of interpretation be made to bear any 
save a national complexion. It was the assertion of 
Jehovah's right to his own domain ; an indignant, 
passionate assertion ; the declaration of a zealot whose 
zeal overrode considerations of wisdom. 

The Christ's bearing before his Roman judge is 
of the same strain ; the proud silence of the arraigned 
prince ; the bold assertion of kingliness, when chal- 
lenged ; the stately defiance of the pagan's wrath ; 
the appeal to supernatural support ; the prediction of 
angelic succor in the hour of need, in strict accord- 
ance with the apocalyptic expressions thrown out at 
the last supper, and reverberated in tremendous rhe- 
toric on the Mount of Olives and in the palace of the 
high priest, expressions in full and literal harmony 
with the Jewish conceptions of the Christ's relations 
with the angelic world, wholly in the spirit of Daniel, 
Enoch, and other apocryphal writings, leave no doubt 
on the mind that this personage moved within the 
limits of the common Messianic conception. Pilate 
condemns him reluctantly, feeling that he is a harm- 
less visionary, but is obliged to condemn him as one 
who persistently claimed to be the " King of the 
Jews," an enemy of Caesar, an insurgent against the 
empire, a pretender to the throne, a bold inciter to 
rebellion. The death he undergoes is the death of 



62 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

the traitor and mutineer, the death that would have 
been decreed to Judas the Gaulonite, had he been 
captured instead of slain in battle, and that was 
inflicted on thousands of his deluded followers. The 
bitter cry of the crucified as he hung on the cross, 
" My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " 
disclosed the hope of deliverance that till the last 
moment sustained his heart, and betrayed the anguish 
felt when the hope was blighted ; the sneers and 
hootings of the rabble expressed their conviction that 
he had pretended to be what he was not. 

The miracles ascribed to the Christ, so far from 
being inconsistent with the ordinary conception of the 
Messianic office, were necessary to complete that con- 
ception. It was expected that the Messiah would 
work miracles. This was one of his prerogatives ; a 
certificate of his commission from Jehovah, and an 
instrument of great service in carrying out his designs. 
To the Jew of that, as of preceding periods, to the 
crude theist of all periods, the belief in miracles was 
and is easy. In such judgment, the will of God. is 
absolute, and when should that will be exerted if not 
at providential crises of need, or in furtherance of his 
servants' work ? The special miracles attributed to 
the Christ of the earliest New Testament literature 
are, as Strauss conclusively shows, patterned after 
performances which met satisfactorily the demands of 
the Jewish imagination ; being either repetitions of 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 63 

ancient marvels, or concrete expressions of ideal faith. 
The miracles of this Christ are precisely adjusted to 
the exigencies of his calling, in no respect trans- 
cending or falling- short of that standard. 

The moral precepts put into the Messiah's mouth 
are also what he might be expected to utter. The 
teachings of the sermon on the Mount are echoes, 
and not altogether awakening or inspiring echoes, of 
ancient ethical law. The beatitudes do not exceed in 
beauty of sentiment or felicity of phrase, lovely 
passages that gem the pages of prophet, psalmist and 
sage. Portions of the morality are harsh, ungracious, 
intemperate, almost inhuman as compared with the 
mellow grandeur of the older law. Several of the 
parables, if taken in an ethical sense, contain moral 
injunctions or insinuations that are quite unjustifiable; 
the parable, for example, of the laborers in the vine- 
yard, the last of whom, though they have worked but 
one hour, receive the same compensation as the early 
comers, who had borne the burden and heat of the 
day ; — the parable of the steward, which, literally con- 
strued, palliates abuse of trusts ; — the parable of Dives 
and Lazarus, which teaches the evil lesson that felicity 
or infelicity hereafter is consequent on fortune or mis- 
fortune here. These and other parables are deprived 
of their dangerous moral tendency by being removed 
from the ethical category, and made to convey lessons 
of a different kind. Read the story of the laborers 



64 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

in the vineyard as intended to justify Jehovah in grant- 
ing the same spiritual favors to the newly called Gen- 
tiles as to the descendants of Abraham who, from the 
first, answered to the call addressed to them : — read 
the story of the steward as conveying an explanation 
of the Pauline policy in making capital with the Gen- 
tiles by offering to them on easy terms the promises 
that the Jews showed themselves unworthy of, and 
rejected : — read the story of Dives and Lazarus as 
containing the idea that the " poor in spirit," the out- 
cast, to whom the mansions of the Lord's house, the 
patrimony of Abraham had never been opened, the 
people who had nothing but faith, — whom even pagan 
dogs commiserated, — should enjoy the blessedness of 
the Messiah's kingdom rather than those who claimed 
a prescriptive right to it on the ground of descent or 
privilege, — and the difficulty of reconciling them with 
moral principle is avoided. These parables and others 
of like tenor, do not belong to the first layer of Mes- 
sianic tradition, but to the second deposit made by 
the Apostle Paul. 

To the same period belong other parables that 
contain larger ideas than the Jewish Messiah of the 
first generation could entertain. Such are the story 
of the net cast into the sea and gathering in of every 
kind, that is, u Greeks and Romr.ns, barbarians, Scy- 
thians, bond and free," not Hebrews only, — the 
miscellaneous haul being impartially examined — 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 65 

sweetness of quality, not forms of scale being made the 
condition of acceptance ; — the story of the good 
Samaritan, designed to place people reckoned idola- 
tors and miscreants on a higher spiritual level than 
anointed priests of whatever order, who postponed 
mercy to sacrifice. Could the Jewish Messiah attri- 
bute to Samaritans a grace that was the highest ad- 
ornment of faithful Jews ? The story of the prodigal 
son belongs to the same category. The elder brother, 
who has always been at home, dutiful but ungracious 
niggardly and covetous, is the Jew who has never left 
the homestead of faith, but has stayed there, confi- 
dently expecting the Messianic inheritance as the re- 
ward of his conventional orthodoxy. The younger 
brother is the Gentile, the infidel, the pagan apostate, 
who throws off the parental authority and reduces 
himself to spiritual beggary. He spends all ; he con- 
tents himself with refuse ; is more heathenish than 
the heathen themselves ; swinish in his habits. Yet 
this spiritual reprobate, by his unseemly behavior, for- 
feits no privilege. The "mansion" of the Father's 
house is still open to him when he shall choose to re- 
turn. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob waits 
and watches for the penitent ; sees him a great way 
off ; runs to meet him ; throws his arms about his 
neck ; reinstates him in his place ; celebrates his 
arrival by feasting, and puts him above the elder 
brother who had been working in the field while the 

5 



66 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

prodigal had been rioting in the city. Such a lesson 
from the lips of the Jewish Messiah would have been 
astonishing indeed. It would have gone far towards 
overturning his ckim. We know that some years 
later the lesson was inculcated as a cardinal doctrine 
by Paul and regarded as a heresy by the Christ's per- 
sonal disciples, and it is in accordance with literary 
laws to refer to this later period the ideas that were 
native to it. 

The religious beliefs imputed to the Messiah we 
are sketching, are the ordinary beliefs of his age and 
people. His faith is the faith of the Pharisees. His 
idea of God is the national idea softened, as it always 
had been, by a gentle mind. It thinks as his country- 
men thought about Providence, fate and freedom, good 
and evil, destiny, the past and the future of his race. 
He believes in the resurrection and the judgment, the 
blessedness that is in store for the faithful Israelite, 
the misery that awaits the unworthy children of 
Abraham. His moral classifications are the technical 
classifications of the enthusiastic patriot, who con- 
founded national with rational principles of judgment. 
He believes in good and bad angels, in guardian 
spirits and demoniacal possession. A Pharisee of the 
narrow literal school he is not. His allegiance to the 
Mosaic law is spiritual, not slavish ; his faith in the 
perpetuity of the temple worship is unencumbered 
with formalism ; he discriminates between the priestly 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 6? 

office and the priestly character, between the form 
and the essence of sacrifice ; yet is he capable of 
lurid feelings and bitter thoughts towards the Phari- 
sees of another school; he cannot enter into the 
mind of the Sadducee ; and the scribe is a person he 
cannot respect. On this side his intolerance occasion- 
ally breaks forth with inconsiderate heat. He calls 
his opponents " blind guides/' " hypocrites," " whited 
sepulchres," and threatens them with the wrath of the 
Eternal. 

The Messiah's essential conception of his office 
does not differ materially from that of his country- 
men. He is no military leader ; he puts no confidence 
in the sword; he incites to no revolt. But he does 
not trust to intellectual methods for his success ; 
the success that he anticipates is not such as fol- 
lows the promulgation of ideas, or the establish- 
ment of moral convictions. He looks for demon- 
strations of power, not human but superhuman. The 
hosts that surround him, and are reckoned on 
to sustain him, are the hosts of heaven, mar- 
shalled under the Lord and prepared to sweep down 
upon the Lord's foes when the hour of conflict shall 
strike. He will not draw the sword himself, or allow 
his followers to gird on weapons of war ; but he is 
more than willing to avail himself of legions irresist- 
ible in might. James Martineau has touched this 
point with a master hand : " The non-resistant prin- 



68 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

ciple meant no more in the early church than that 
the disciples were not to anticipate the hour fast ap- 
proaching of the Messiah's descent to claim his throne* 
But when that hour struck there was to be no want of 
' physical force ' no shrinking from retribution as either 
unjust or undivine. The ' naming fire,' the 'sudden 
destruction,' the ' mighty angels,' the ' tribulation 
and anguish,' were to form the retinue of Christ, and 
the pioneers of the kingdom of God. The new reign 
was to come with force, and on nothing else in the last 
resort was there any reliance; only the army was to 
arrive from heaven before the earthly recruits were 
taken up. ' My kingdom,' said Jesus, ' is not of this 
world, else would my servants fight;' an expression 
which implies that no kingdom of this world can dis- 
pense with arms, and that he himself, were he the head 
of a human polity, would not forbid the sword : but 
while "legions of angels" stood ready for his word, 
and only waited till the Scripture was fulfilled, and 
the hour of darkness was passed, to obey the signal 
of heavenly invasion, the weapon of earthly temper 
might remain in its sheath." 

It is not affirmed here that the actual Jesus corres- 
ponded to this Messianic representation; that he 
filled it and no more ; that it correctly and adequately 
reported him. It may possibly present only so much 
of him as the average of his contemporaries could 
appreciate. They may be right who are of opinion 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 69 

that the fourth evangelist comes nearer to the histor- 
ical truth than the first. That the earliest New Testa- 
ment conception of the Messiah has been correctly 
portrayed in the preceding sketch may be granted 
without prejudice to the historical Jesus. They 
only who assume the identity of this Hebrew Messiah 
with the man of Nazareth, need place him in the niche 
that is here made for the Messiah. There are others 
more noble. Let each decide for himself, on the evi- 
dence, to which he belongs. Some will decide that 
the first account of a wonderful person must, from the 
nature of the case, be the falsest ; others will decide 
that in the nature of things it must be the truest. 
Whichever be the decision the literary image remains 
unimpaired. Whether time should be judged requi- 
site to emancipate the living character from the 
associations of its environment, and bring it into full 
view ; or whether on the other hand time should be 
regarded as darkening and confusing the image, for 
the reason that it allows the growth of legends and 
distorting theory, is a question that will be touched 
by-ancl-by. For the present it suffices to show what 
the earliest representation was, and to trace its descent 
from the traditions of the race. The materials are 
adequate for this, whether for more or not. The form 
of Jesus may be lost, but the form of the Messiah is 
distinct. 



V. 

THE FIRST CHRISTIANS. 

The death of the Messiah did not discourage his 
followers, as it might have done had he presented 
the coarser type of the anticipation illustrated by 
Judas of Galilee whose insurrection had been extin- 
guished in blood some years before, yet the movement 
of Judas did not cease at his death, but troubled the 
state for sixty years. His two sons, James and John, 
raised the Messianic standard fifteen years or there- 
abouts after the crucifixion of Jesus, and were them- 
selves crucified. Their younger brother, Menahem, 
renewed the attempt twenty years later, and so far 
succeeded that he cut his way to the throne, assumed 
the part of a king, went in royal state to the temple, 
and but for the fury of his fanaticism might have re- 
erected temporarily the throne of David. But this 
kind of Messiah, besides being savage, was monot- 
onous. His appeal was to the lower passions ; the 
thoughtful, imaginative, contemplative, poetic, were 
not drawn to him. His followers, adherents not dis- 
ciples, — might, at the best, have founded a dynasty, 
they could not have planted a church. The pure en- 
thusiasm of the Christ, his entire singleness of heart, 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. JI 

the absence in him of private ambition or self-seeking, 
his confidence in the heavenly character of his mis- 
sion, his reliance on superhuman aid, his sincere per- 
suasion that the purpose of his calling would not be 
thwarted by death, insured his hold on those who had 
trusted him. They did not lose their conviction that 
he was the Messiah ; they anticipated his return, in 
glory, to complete his work ; in that anticipation they 
waited, watched and prayed. The name " Christians " 
was, we are told, given, in derision, to the believers 
in Antioch. But if they had chosen a name for them- 
selves, they could not have hit on a more precisely 
descriptive one. " Christians " they were ; believers 
that the Christ had come, that the crucified was the 
Christ, that he would re-appear and vindicate his 
claim. This was their single controlling thought, 
the only thought that distinguished them from their 
countrymen who rejected the Messiahship of their 
friend. They were Jews, in every respect ; Jews of 
Jews, enthusiastic, devout, pharisaic Jews, the firmest 
of adherents to the Law of Moses, unqualified receiv- 
ers of tradition, diligent students of the scriptures, 
constant attendants at the temple worship, urgent in 
supplication, literal in creed, and punctual in obser- 
vance ; acquiescent in the claims of the priesthood, 
scrupulous in all Hebrew etiquette. They were de- 
termined that the Master, at his coming, should find 
them ready. 



72 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

James, " the Lord's brother," set an example of 
sanctity worthy of a high-priest. In fact, he assumed 
the position of a priest, and filled it with such auster- 
ity that he was called " the righteous." He tasted, 
says Hegesippus, neither wine nor strong drink ; he 
ate nothing that had life ; his hair was never shorn ; 
his body was never anointed with oil, or bathed in 
water ; his garments were of linen, never of wool ; 
so perfect was he in all righteousness that, though no 
consecrated priest, he was permitted to enter the holy 
place behind the veil of the temple, and there he spent 
hours in intercession for the people, his knees becom- 
ing as hard as a camel's from contact with the stone 
pavement. To those who asked him the way to life, 
he replied : " Believe that Jesus is the Christ." When 
some dissenters protested against this declaration and 
asked him to retract it, he repeated it with stronger 
emphasis ; when the malcontents who revered him, 
but would have none of his Messiah, raised a tumult 
and tried to intimidate him, he reiterated the state- 
ment, adding : " He sits in heaven, at the right hand 
of the Supreme power, and will come in clouds." For 
this testimony, says tradition, he laid down his life. 

The fellow-believers of James imitated him as 
closely as they could. They were proud of their de- 
scent from Abraham ; they were tenacious of the 
privileges granted to the twelve tribes ; they kept up 
their relation with the synagogue ; they had faith in 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 73 

forms of observance ; they revered the Sabbath ; their 
trust in the literal efficacy of prayer was implicit ; 
they were excessively jealous of intellectual activity 
outside of their narrow communion ; their anticipa- 
tions were confined to the restoration of Israel, and 
never wandered into the region of social improvement 
or moral progress ; in general ethical and social cul- 
ture they were not interested. 

They had no ecclesiastical establishment apart 
from the Jewish Church ; no separate priesthood, no 
sacraments, no cultus, no rubric, no calendar, no lit- 
urgy. The validity of sacrifice they maintained, the 
doctrine of sacrifice possessing a deeper significance 
for them from the growing faith that their Lord was 
himself the paschal lamb, the shedding of whose 
blood purchased the remission of sins. Hence a special 
encouragement of the sacerdotal spirit, an exaggerated 
sense of the efficacy of blood, a theory of atonement 
more searching and absolute than had prevailed in the 
ancient church. The later doctrine of atonement in 
the christian church may have grown from this small 
but vital germ. 

They had no dogma peculiar to themselves, the 
doctrines of the old Church being all they needed ; 
they had no trinity or beginning of trinity ; no 
christology ; no doctrine of Fall ; no theory of first 
and second Adam ; no metaphysic ; no philosophy 
of sin and salvation ; no interior mystery of expe- 



74 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

rience. Whatever newness of creed they avowed, 
was owing to their acknowledgment of the Christ, and 
consisted in a few very simple inferences from this 
tenet. Of course even slow-minded, literal, external 
men could not entertain a belief like that, and not be 
pushed by it to certain practical conclusions. The 
expectation of the Christ's coming would necessarily 
raise questions respecting the conditions of acceptance 
with him, the character of his dominion, the duration 
of it, the social changes incidental to it ; but it does 
not appear that speculation on these subjects was car- 
ried far. A crude millenarianism developed itself 
early ; a cloudy theory of atonement found favor ; 
for the rest, conjecture, it was little more, dwelt con- 
tentedly within the confines of rabbinical lore. 

There was nothing peculiar in their moral precepts 
or usages, nothing that should effect a change in the 
received ethics of the nation. Their essential creed 
involved no practical innovation on private or social 
moralities. The mosaic code was familiar to them 
from childhood. The popular commentaries on it 
were promulgated from week to week in the syna- 
gogues, and their validity was no more questioned by 
the Christians than by the most orthodox of Jews. 

The daily existence of these people was retired 
and simple. They had frequent meetings for talk, 
song, mutual cheer and confirmation ; full of expecta- 
tion and excitement they must have been ; wild with 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 75 

memories and hopes. For the believers lived out of 
themselves, in an ideal, a supernatural sphere ; their 
hearts were in heaven with their Master, whose form 
filled their vision, whose voice they seemed to hear, 
from whom came, as they fancied, impressions, intima- 
tions, influences, unspoken but breathed messages 
interpreted by the soul. They were visionaries* 
Their life was illusion. They were transported beyond 
themselves at times, by the prospect of the Lord's 
nearness. Their minds were dazed ; their feelings 
raised to ecstasy ; in vision they saw the heavens open 
and fiery tongues descend. Their small upper chamber 
seemed to tremble and dilate in sympathy with their 
feelings ; the ceiling appeared to lift ; they were 
moved by an impulse which they could not account 
for, and regarded themselves as inspired. 

In these circumstances, it is not to be wondered 
at that they lived in communities by themselves, pre- 
ferring the society of their fellows ; that they had a 
common purse, a common table ; that they were 
ascetic and celibate ; that they withdrew from public 
affairs and from private business, and approached 
nearly to the Essenes, with whom they had much in 
common, perpetuating the habit of monasticism, which 
became afterwards so prominent a feature in the 
Eastern church. 

Nor is it surprising that they regarded the intimate 
friends of their Christ with a peculiar veneration, and 



j6 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

ascribed to them extraordinary gifts. The basis of 
the future hierarchy was laid in the honor paid to these 
few men. They were credited with supernatural 
insight, and with the possession of miraculous power. 
Their touch was healing ; their mere shadow com- 
forted ; their approval was blessing ; their displeasure 
cursed. What they ratified was fixed ; what they 
permitted was decreed. Their word was law ; it was 
for them to admit and to exclude. The penalty of 
excommunication was in their hands, to be inflicted at 
their discretion. Superstition went so far as to con- 
cede to them the alternatives of life and death. The 
legend of Ananias and Sapphira is evidence of a 
credulity that set not reason only, but conscience at 
defiance. In their infatuation they believed that the 
Christ above communicated a saving spiritual grace 
to such as the apostles touched with their fingers. 

Very singular, but very consistent and logical 
were the views of death entertained by the brother- 
hood in Christ. As their Lord delayed his coming, 
the elders grew old and fell asleep. There was a 
brotherhood of the dead as well as of the living; the 
living became few ; the dead many. Questions arose 
respecting the destination of those departed. That 
they had perished was not to be thought of ; as little to 
be thought of was the possibility of their forfeiting their 
privilege of sharing the believers' triumph. The resur- 
rcction the disciples had always believed in. That, at 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. JJ 

the coming of the Messiah there would be a general res- 
urrection of the faithful Israelites from their graves, in 
field or rock, was part of their ancestral faith. But now, 
the matter was brought home to them with painful re- 
ality. The Christ might come at any moment ; the 
dead were their own immediate kindred, their parents 
and brethren. The problem presented no difficulties to 
their minds however agitating it might be to their 
hearts. The Lord would come ; of that there could 
be no doubt ; the dead would rise, that was certain ; 
but in what form? In what order? Would the 
living have precedence of them ? Where would the 
meeting take place ? How would the dead know that 
the time of resurrection had arrived ? The answer 
came promptly as the question. The trumpet of the 
angels would proclaim the event to all creatures, 
visible and invisible. The elect would respond to the 
summons ; the gates of Hades would burst asunder. 
In etherial forms, lighter than air, more radiant than 
the morning, the faithful who had died " in the Lord," 
would ascend ; the living would exchange their ter- 
restial bodies for bodies celestial, and thus " changed," 
"in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye," would 
mount upward to join them, and all together would 
" meet the Lord in the air." For the believers the 
grave had no victory and death no sting. 

In all this the Christians were strictly within the 
circle of Jewish thought. The belief in the resurrec- 



yS THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

tion wore different aspects in different minds ; the 
vision of the hereafter floated many-hued before the 
imaginations of men. The fiery zealots who "took 
the kingdom of heaven by violence," dreamed of the 
resurrection of the body, and of tangible privileges of 
dominion in the terrestrial millennium. The milder 
enthusiasts, who could not believe that flesh and blood 
could inherit the kingdom of God, were constrained to 
invent a " spiritual world " for the accommodation of 
spiritual bodies. Some conjectured that the etherial 
forms would mount to their native seat, only at the 
termination of the thousand years reign ; the spiritual 
world being brought in at the end, as a device of 
eschatology to dispose finally of the saints who could 
neither die nor remain longer on earth. Others 
surmised that the spiritual world would claim its own at 
once, there being no place on earth where the risen 
could live and no occupations in which they could 
engage. The cruder faith was the earlier. 

The fanatics, as described in the second Book of 
Maccabees, an apocryphal writing of the second cen- 
tury before Christ, hoped for a corporeal resurrection 
and a visible supremacy. Of seven sons, who, with 
their mother, were barbarously executed because they 
refused to deny their religion by eating swines' flesh, 
one declares : " The King of the world shall raise us 
up who have died for his laws, into everlasting life ; " 
another, holding forth his hands (to be cut off), said 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 79 

courageously, " These I had from heaven, and for his 
laws I despise them, and from him I hope to receive 
them again." The next shouts : " It is good being 
put to death by men, to look for hope from God, to 
be raised up again by him ; as for thee, thou shalt 
have no resurrection to life." Finally, when all the 
seven have died heroically, with words of similar 
import on their lips, the mother is put to death, hav- 
ing exhorted her youngest born to faithfulness with 
the exhortation : " Doubtless the Creator of the world 
who formed the generation of man, and found out the 
beginning of all things, will also, of his own mercy, 
give you breath and life again, as ye now regard not 
your own selves for his laws' sake." The same book 
records the suicide of Razis : " One of the elders of 
Jerusalem, a lover of his countrymen, and a man of 
very good report, who for his kindness was called a 
Father of the Jews, for in former times he had been 
accused of Judaism, and did boldly jeopard his body 
and life with all vehemency for the religion of the 
Jews ;" " choosing rather to die manfully than to come 
into the hands of the wicked, to be abused otherwise 
than beseemed his noble birth, he fell on his sword. 
Nevertheless, while there was yet breath within him, 
being inflamed with anger, he rose up, and though 
his blood gushed out like spouts of water, and his 
wounds were grievous, yet he ran through the midst 
of the throng, and, standing upon a steep rock, when 



80 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

as his blood was now quite gone, he plucked out his 
bowels, and taking them in both his hands, he cast them 
upon the throng, and calling upon the Lord of life and 
spirit to restore him those again, he thus died." 

The angel of the book of Daniel calls up a fairer 
vision : " Many of them that sleep in the dust of the 
earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some 
to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that 
be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firma- 
ment ; and they that turn many to righteousness, 
as the stars for ever and ever." 

Something like this, perhaps, was the anticipation 
of the Christ sketched in the last chapter. The 
personal conception is shadowy. There is nothing 
to indicate positively that he departed from the usual 
opinion of a physical resurrection and a kingdom of 
heaven on earth, a period of terrestrial happiness 
under the rule of Jehovah. The declaration to 
the thief on the cross : " This day thou shalt be with 
me in Paradise," belongs to a later tradition, cor- 
responding to the ideas of Paul. The parable of 
Dives and Lazarus must be assigned to the same 
circle of doctrine. The saying respecting children, 
" Their angels always behold the face of my father 
in heaven,'' conveys no more than the belief in 
guardian spirits. The " angels " are not departed 
children, but the watchers over the lives of living 
ones. The reply given to the Sadducees, in Matt. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 8 1 

XXII. , " 111 the resurrection they neither marry, nor 
are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in 
heaven," implies that the temporal condition of the 
Messiah's subjects will differ in important respects 
from their present social estate, but does not suggest 
a celestial locality for its organization ; and the 
declaration that follows : " God is not the God of 
the dead, but of the living," affirms merely that 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not annihilated, that 
they are, or will be, alive ; but how, where, or when, 
is left undecided. The expression, " Thy kingdom 
come," in the paternoster, so different from the latter 
petition : " May we come into thy kingdom." looks 
towards an earthly paradise. The succeeding phrase, 
" Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," 
points in the same direction. It is probable that the 
Christ, living and expecting to live, contemplated the 
establishment of his Messianic dominion in Palestine. 
After his death and disappearance, the thoughts of 
his friends turned elsewhither, and with an increas- 
ing steadiness, as his return was delayed, and the 
probabilities of their going to him outweighed the 
probabilities of his coming to them. The change 
of expectation was, it is likely, a gradual, silent, and 
unperceived one, effected slowly, and not completed 
till a new conception of the Christ supplanted the old 
one, and transformed every feature of the Messianic 
belief. In less than twenty-five years after the death 



82 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

of Jesus, this change was so far effected that it was 
capable of full literary expression. The writings that 
publish it, are the genuine letters of Paul, and other 
scriptures produced under the inspiration of his idea. 



VI. 

PAUL'S NEW DEPARTURE. 

There is reason to think, as we have said, that the 
first Messianic impulse would have spent itself inef- 
fectually in a few years, had not a fresh impulse been 
given by a new conception of the Messiah. The 
Christ outlined in the earliest literature of the New 
Testament would hardly have founded a permanent 
church, or given his name to a distinct religion. A 
new conception came, in due time, from an unexpected 
quarter, through a man who was both Jew and Greek ; 
Jew by parentage, nurture, training and genius ; 
Greek by birth-place, residence and association ; a 
man well versed in scripture, a pupil of approved 
rabbis, familiar with the talmud, and deeply interested 
in talmudical speculation ; a Pharisee of the straitest 
sect ; an enthusiast — yes, a fanatic by temperament ; 
on the other hand, a mind somewhat expanded by in- 
tercourse with the people and the literature of other 
nations. Paul's feeling on the " Christ question " 
was always intense. He made it a personal matter, 



84 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

even in his comparative youth ; distinguishing himself 
by his zeal in behalf of correct opinion on the subject. 
He appears, first, a young man, as a persecutor of the 
Jews who believed that the Christ had actually come, 
and who were waiting for his return in clouds. That 
idea seemed to him visionary and dangerous ; he made 
it his business to exterminate it by violence, if neces- 
sary. But the fury of his demonstration proved his 
interest in the general idea. He was at heart a Mes- 
sianic believer, though not in that style. A Messianic 
believer he continued to be, but to the end as little as 
at first, in that style. To the ordinary belief he never 
was " converted ; " his repudiation of it was perhaps at 
no time less vehement than it was at the beginning ; 
as his own thought matured, his rejection of the faith 
he persecuted in his youth, became it seems more 
deliberate, if less violent. 

As he pursued one phase of the Messianic expec- 
tation, another aspect of it burst upon him with the 
splendor of a revelation, and determined his career. 
The man who had breathed fury against one type, be- 
came the apostle of another. The same fiery zeal that 
blasted the one, warmed the other into life. In the 
book of the " Acts of the Apostles," the first martyr 
at whose stoning Paul assisted, bore the Greek 
name " Stephen," whence, as well as from other in- 
dications, it has been surmised by Baur and others 
that he was a precursor of the future " Gentile party," 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 85 

pursued and slain by the " orthodox" on account of his 
infidelity to the cause of Hebrew national exclusive- 
ness. If this conjecture be admitted, the deed Paul 
had abetted, may have been the immediate cause of 
his own moral revulsion of feeling. The slain over- 
came the slayer. The dying band committed to the 
fierce bystander the torch it could carry no further. 
The murdered Greek raised up the apostle to the 
Greeks, thus avenging himself by sending his adver- 
sary to martyrdom in the same cause for which he 
himself bled. In religious fervors such reactions have 
been frequent. 

For Paul was, from first to last, the same person, in 
no natural feature of mind or character changed. His 
religious belief remained essentially, even incidentally 
unaltered. A Pharisee he was born, and a Pharisee 
he continued. The pharisaic doctrine of the resurrec- 
tion was the corner stone of his system, the beginning, 
middle and end of his faith, the starting point of his 
creed. His conception of God was the ordinary con- 
ception, unqualified, unmitigated, uncompromised. 
The divine sovereignty never suffered weakening at 
his hands. One can hardly open the epistle to the 
Jewish Christians in Rome, without coming across 
some tremendous assertion of the absolute supremacy 
of God, Read the passage in the first chapter, 
20-26 verses; in the second chapter, 6-12 verses; 
in the ninth chapter, 14-23 verses ; in the eleventh 



86 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

chapter, first verse and onward. Read I Corin., 
fifteenth chapter, 24-29 verses. The old fash- 
ioned Jewish conception is expressed in language 
simply revolting in its bald inhumanity. The views 
of Divine Providence set forth in some of these sen- 
tences are anthropomorphitic to a degree that is 
amazing in an intellectual man of his age and race. 
His discussions of fate and free-will betoken the 
sternness of a dogmatic, rather than the discernment 
of a philosophic, mind. His notion of history has 
the narrowness of the national character. His ethics 
are taken from the law of Moses, and not from the 
more benignant versions of it. The grandest ethical 
chapter he ever wrote, the twelfth chapter of Romans, 
contains no less than three instances of grave infidel 
ity to the highest standard of morality in his own 
scriptures. Rabbi Hillel said : " Love peace, and 
pursue peace ; love mankind, and bring them near 
the law. The moral condition of the world depends 
on three things, — Truth, Justice, and Peace." Paul 
says : " If it be possible, so much as lyeth in you, live 
peaceably with all men," implying clearly that it might 
not always be possible, and in such cases was not to 
be expected. The tacit proviso in the phrase " so 
much as lyeth in you," discharges the obligation of 
its imperative character ; as if conscious that the duty 
might prove too much for the moral power, he 
will not impose it. It is written in the Talmud: 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 8/ 

" Thou shalt love thy neighbor ; even if he be a crim- 
inal, and has forfeited his life, practise charity towards 
him in the last moments." Paul drops far below this 
when he bids his disciples, "Avenge not yourselves, but 
rather give place unto wrath " (make room for wrath 
that is wrath indeed.) " For it is written, ' vengeance 
is mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord.' " Therefore 
(because the Lord's vengeance will be more terrible 
than yours), " if thine enemy hunger, feed him : if he 
thirst, give him drink ; for in so doing, thou shalt heap 
coals of fire on his head." That is, by showing kind- 
ness you will inflict on him tenfold agony ! 

Such a disciple would not adorn the membership 
of a modern Peace Society. The language ascribed 
to him in Ephesians bristles with military metaphor ; 
" Fight the good fight of faith," " The helmet of sal- 
vation," " The sword of the Spirit," " Armor of 

light.- 

In the days of our own anti-slavery conflict, his 
dictum, " Slaves obey your masters, in fear and trem- 
bling, in singleness of heart," was a tower of strength 
and a fountain of refreshment to many an upholder of 
the patriarchal system. The later Christians in the 
West could safely justify their quiet toleration of 
the system of slavery in the Roman Empire by the 
precepts of the foremost apostle. If the genuineness 
of the epistle to Philemon could be maintained, the 
case would wear a different look. But it is much 



88 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

more than doubtful whether even that qualified hu- 
manity proceeded from his pen. 

In our own generation the apostle is a serious 
stumbling block in the way of " evangelical " women 
who are friendly to the aspirations of their sex. He 
showed the most stubborn Hebrew principles on this 
subject. " Wives, submit yourselves to your hus- 
bands " ; " Let your women keep silence in the 
churches ; if they wish to learn anything, let them 
ask their husbands at home ; for it is a shame for 
women to speak in the church." " It is permitted 
them to be under obedience." The Hindoo scripture 
spoke better : " Where women are honored, there the 
deities are pleased. Where they are dishonored there 
all religious acts become fruitless/' 

How can the most conservative Republicans ac- 
cept as teacher a man who counsels religious men, in 
proportion as they are religious, to surrender their full, 
unqualified, sincere allegiance to established author- 
ities because they are established, however despotic, 
ferocious nay vile they may be ; even to such despot- 
isms as that of Nero ; — maintaining that resistance to 
such is equivalent to resisting the ordinance of God ? — 
giving this not as the counsel of prudence, but as the 
dictate of conscience, thus proclaiming exemption from 
criticism or assault, for inhuman tyrannies ? Nothing 
short of this is inculcated by the sweeping declara- 
tion : " Let every soul be subject to the higher powers : 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 89 

for there is no power but of God ; the established 
powers are ordained of God." No doubt the bidding 
was given in view of a turbulent or insurrectionary spirit 
among the Israelites in Rome, but it is given without 
explanation or limit. It ratifies the divine right of 
kings : sanctions the principle that might makes 
right. Paul was an enthusiast for ideas ; not a 
theologian, not a social reformer, but one whose zeal 
was spent on doctrines. Prevailingly intellectual, his 
whole nature was fused by the electric touch of a new 
thought. 

Paul's acquaintance with the Talmud is evidenced 
by his writings. His use of allegory, his fanciful an- 
alogies, his mystical interpretations, his play on words, 
his passion for types and symbols, his ingenious spec- 
ulations on history and eschatology, betray his famili- 
arity with that curious literature. He found a mine 
of precious material in the mythical Adam Caedmon, 
the progenitor, the prototype, the "federal head" of 
the race, the man who was not a man but a microcosm, 
created by special act from sifted clay ; a creature 
whose erected head touched the firmament, whose ex- 
tended body reached across the earth ; a being to 
whom all save Satan did obeisance ; who, but for his 
transgression, would have enjoyed an immortality on 
earth ; whose sin entailed on the human race all the 
evils, material and moral, that have cursed the world ; 
the primordial man, who contained in himself the > 



90 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

germs of all mankind ; whose corruption tainted the 
nature of generations of descendants. The Talmud 
exhausts speculation on this prodigious personality. 
The doctrine of the christian church for fifteen hundred 
years was not so much colored as shaped by the rabbis 
who exercised their subtlety on this tempting theme. 
Philo, a contemporary of Paul, is in no respect behind 
the most imaginative in his conjectures on this sub- 
lime legend. That Paul, a student of the Talmud, fell 
in with them, should excite no surprise. That he 
added nothing is due probably to the fact that there 
was nothing to add. 

From the Talmud, also, and from other rabbinical 
writings, Paul derived a complete angelology, a de- 
partment of speculation in which the Jewish literature 
after the captivity was exceedingly prolific — Meta- 
thron, Sandalphon, Akathriel, Suriel, were familiar 
to his mind. It is a bold suggestion made by Dr. 
Isaac M. Wise, the Hebrew rabbi fresh from the Tal- 
mud,* that Metathron, — .'isra Opovov, near the throne, 
called by eminent titles, " king of the angels," "prince 
of the countenance," impressed Paul's imagination and 
was the original of his Christ. Between this supreme 
angel, co-ordinate with deity and spiritually akin to 
him, and the Christ of Paul's conception, the corres- 
pondence seems to be too close to be accidental; so 

* Origin of Christianity, p. 335-341. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 91 

close, indeed, that some, unable to deny or to confute 
it, are driven to surmise that the first conception or- 
iginated with the apostle. It is more probable how- 
ever, though not provable, that the rabbinical idea 
was the earlier, and that the apostle took that as well 
as the Adam Caedmon from the rabbis. The " prince 
of angels " precisely met his requirement as a counter- 
vailing power to Adam, and supplied a ground for his 
theory of the second Adam, the " living spirit," the 
" Lord from Heaven," the primal man of a new crea- 
tion, the first born of a new progeny, the originator of 
a "law of life" which should check and counteract 
the "law of sin and death." The second Man was 
the counterpart of the first. 

He is a man, yet is he no man ; his flesh is only 
" the likeness of sinful flesh," liable to death, but not 
implicating the personality in dying. He is the 
spiritual, heavenly, ideal man ; celestial, glorious, image 
of God, translucent, sinless, impeccable ; pre-existent, 
of course ; without father or mother ; an expression of 
divinity ; a creator of new worlds for the habitation 
of the " Sons of God." His birth is an entrance into 
humanity from an abode of light. The mission of this 
transcendent being is, in a word, to break the force of 
transmitted sin, and reverse the destiny of the race. 
He imparts the principle of life, which is to restore all 
things. A multitude of incidental points are involved 
in this fundamental one, points of theology, anthro- 



92 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

pology, history, ethics, metaphysics, that present no 
difficulty to one who has this key. The long disquisi- 
tions on the Mosaic law, the discussions on the privi- 
leges of the Hebrew race and the rights of other races 
were necessary. The familiar doctrine of the resur- 
rection derived fresh interest from association with 
the general theory, inasmuch as it supplied a ground- 
work for the expectation that the glorified One would 
re-appear ; and the hypothesis of a " spiritual " body, 
ventured and fully developed by the rabbis, even illus- 
trated by analogies of the " corn of wheat " which the 
apostle makes so much of in the fifteenth chapter of I. 
Corinthians, supplied all else that was wanting to com- 
plete the scheme. The Christ, being sinless, was 
held to be incorruptible ; death had no dominion over 
him, was in fact in his case, an " excarnation," the 
preparation for an ascent to the realm of light he came 
from, and to his seat at the right hand of his Father, 
instead of being a descent into the region of darkness 
to which mortals are doomed. The doctrine of last 
things follows from the doctrine of first things. They 
who are one with Christ through faith share his death- 
lessness. If they die, it is merely a temporary retire- 
ment, in which they await the coming of their Lord, 
who will in his own time call them out of their prison 
house. The larger number, however, were not, in the 
apostle's belief, destined to die at all ; but might look 
as he did, to be transfigured, by the putting off of 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 93 

their vile bodies, and the putting on of glorious bodies 
like that of the great forerunner. In his amplifica- 
tions on this theme, Paul shows little originality, and 
adds nothing important to the material lying ready to 
his hand. 

The advantage his scheme gave him as a preacher 
to the Gentiles is too obvious to be dwelt on. As a 
Greek by birth and culture, he was interested in the 
fate of other nations besides the Jews. A system of 
religion adapted to the traditions and satisfactory to 
the hopes of a peculiar people, — a national, exclusive 
religion in the benefits whereof none but Jews might 
share, and from whose grace no lineal descendant of 
Abraham could be excluded, did not commend itself 
to this man, half Jew, half Greek. The faith that ob- 
tained his allegiance, and awoke his zeal must possess 
a human character by virtue of which its message 
could be carried to all mankind. Such a faith his 
new theory of the Christ gave him. He could say to 
his Greek friends : " This religion that I bring you is 
no Hebrew peculiarity. Its Christ is no son of 
David, but a son of God ; its heaven is no Messianic 
kingdom in Judea, but a region of light above the 
skies ; its principle is faith, not obedience to a cere- 
monial or legal code ; it dispenses entirely with the 
requirements of the law of Moses ; makes no account 
of sacrifices or priests ; presumes on no acquaintance 
with Hebrew scriptures, or reverence for Hebrew 



94 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

men ; questions of circumcision and uncircumcision 
are trivial and impertinent. The religion of Christ 
addresses you as men, not as Jewish men ; it appeals 
to the universal sense of moral and spiritual infirmity, 
and offers a moral and spiritual, not a technical deliv- 
erance ; instead of limiting, it will enlarge you ; in- 
stead of binding, it will emancipate you ; its genius is 
liberty, through which you are set free from ceremo- 
nialism, ritualism, dogmatism, moralism, and are made 
partakers of a new intellectual life." 

Not all at once did this scheme unfold itself be- 
fore the apostle's vision. Gradually it came to him 
as he meditated alone, or experimented with it on 
listeners in remote places. Naturally, he avoided the 
associations of the people he had persecuted, and the 
teachers they looked up to. He had nothing to learn 
from them ; he understood their system and was dis- 
satisfied with it, in short, rejected it. Their Jewish 
Messiah, literal, national, hebraic, was not an attrac- 
tive personage to his mind. The promise of felicity 
in a Jewish kingdom of heaven was not enchanting. 
The daily life of the believers in Jerusalem was for- 
mal, unnatural, repulsive to one who had " walked 
large" in foreign cities and realms of thought. The 
apostles, Peter, James, John, had nothing important to 
tell him that he did not know already. The earthly de- 
tails of the life of Jesus might have interested him, but 
the interior character and the human significance of 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 95 

the Christ were the main thing, and these he may have 
thought himself more in the way of appreciating by a 
temporary retirement to the depths of his own con- 
sciousness. Having matured his thoughts, he did 
put himself in communication with the original dis- 
ciples, with what result is frankly stated in his letter 
to the Galatians : " To those who seemed to be some- 
what (what they were is no concern of mine, God 
accepteth no man's person), but who in conference 
added nothing to me, I did not give way, in subjec- 
tion, no, not for an hour." So heated he becomes, as 
he remembers this interview, that he can scarcely 
write coherently about it. The two conceptions of 
the Christ and his office were so far apart, that he did 
not, to his dying day, form intimate relations with 
the teachers of the primitive gospel. They taught 
an uncongenial scheme. 

From the first, Paul's sphere of action was the 
Gentile world to which his message was adapted. If 
his first appeal was addressed to Jews, it was simply 
because Christianity, as he understood it, being an 
outgrowth from Jewish thought, a development of 
Jewish tradition, should naturally be more intelligible 
and more welcome to them than to people who had 
no historical or literary preparation for it. But he 
took the broad ground with them, and addressed 
his word to outsiders the moment stubbornly dogmati- 
cal Jews declined to receive it on his terms. The at- 



96 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

tempt made by the author of the " Acts of the Apos- 
tles," to show that Paul modified or qualified his scheme 
to bring it into harmony with the older scheme that he 
supplanted, fails from the circumstance that the 
writer discerns no peculiarity in his theory of the 
Christ, and consequently misses completely the 
ground of any antagonism. 

This is written in the persuasion that the " Acts 
of the Apostles " is not trustworthy as history ; has 
in fact no historical intent, but belongs to the class 
of writings that may be called conciliatory, or media- 
torial, designed to bring opposing views together, to 
heal divisions, and smooth over rough places. By 
pulling hard at both ends of the string, dragging Peter 
towards Paul, and Paul towards Peter, ascribing to 
both the same opinions, imputing to both the same 
designs, and passing both through the same experi- 
ences, the author would make his readers believe that 
they stood on the same foundation. The grounds of 
the opinion above stated cannot be given here ; but 
there are grounds for it, and solid ones, as any one 
may discover who will take the pains to look at Ed- 
ward Zeller's essay on the " Acts," or any other argu- 
ment from an unprejudiced point of view. The con- 
clusion may be arrived at, however, by a shorter p;o- 
cess, namely, by taking Paul's Christology as given by 
himself in his own letters, and then considering how 
completely it is excluded from the book. It seems to 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 97 

the present writer nothing less than certain, as plain as 
any point of literary criticism can be, that the " Acts 
of the Apostles " is not to be relied on for informa- 
tion respecting the life and opinions of the apostle 
Paul. In this opinion writers belonging to very dif- 
ferent schools of religious philosophy, Mackay, for ex- 
ample, and Martineau, are cordially agreed. This 
must henceforth be regarded as one of the points es- 
tablished. The firmer the apprehension of Paul's 
peculiarity, the stronger is the conviction that the 
description of his conduct in the book of "Acts " must 
be fanciful. If he tells the truth, as there is no rea- 
son to doubt, the unknown author of the "Acts" ro- 
mances. 

The necessity that Paul was under of commend- 
ing his christology to the Jews, a self-imposed neces- 
sity in part, inasmuch as his own genius being Jew- 
ish, imposed it on him, embarrassed the movement of 
his mind to such a degree that he was never able to do 
perfect justice to his own theory. Much time was spent 
in explaining his conduct to orthodox Jews, or in 
answering questions raised by hebrew casuistry. The 
epistle to the Romans, the most labored of his compo- 
sitions, is a long argument addressed to his country- 
men in Rome, with the design of persuading them 
that Jehovah was quite justified in accepting Gentiles 
who conformed to his requirements, and in rejecting 

children of Abraham who did not. This is the burden 

7 



98 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

of the letter. The argument is lighted up by splendid 
bursts of eloquence, and diversified by keen remarks on 
points of psychology. But, omitting two or three of the 
chapters and scattered passages in others, the remainder 
is intellectually arid and devoid of human interest. The 
same may be said of the letter to the Galatians. The 
epistles to the Thessalonians, and those to the Corin- 
thians, are occupied chiefly with matters of local and 
incidental concern. It is probable that Paul's genius 
was disastrously circumscribed within hebrew limits 
after all ; that he never completely emancipated him- 
self even from the old time traditions of his people ; 
that the Jewish half of the man was not the weaker half. 
A philosopher he was not ; a theologian, in the great 
sense, he was not ; a metaphysician he was not ; 
a psychologist he was not. He was an apostle, a 
preacher, The problems he discussed were formal 
rather than vital, and the spirit in which he discussed 
them was the temper of the dogmatist rather than 
that of the seer. However this may be, it may be 
affirmed that his system contained no strictly original 
ideas ; that his leading thoughts, and even the phases 
of his thought, were borrowed from the literature of 
his nation, or, at least, may be found there. 

It is a frequent remark that, but for St. Paul, 
Christianity might have had no life out of Judea ; 
which is tantamount to saying that it might have had 
no prolonged or extended life at all, but would have 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 99 

perished as an incidental phase of Judaism. The 
remark is essentially just; at the same time it must 
be remembered that the Christianity which Paul 
devised and planted was a system quite unlike that 
of his predecessors, though still another phase of 
Judaism, a divergent and cosmopolitan phase. 

Other pieces of literature, Ephesians, Colossians, 
Philippians, Hebrews, which, whether the compositions 
of Paul or not, contain developments of his thought, 
and may be called " Pauline," carry further his 
central speculation and apply his principle to the new 
problems that presented themselves in the social life 
of the religion ; yet these do not go beyond the lines 
of Jewish thought. The significant passage in Phil- 
ippians, "Who, although he was in the form of God, 
thought not that an equality with God, was a thing he 
ought greedily to grasp at," suggests the Greek 
mythus of Lucifer, who fell because, being already the 
brightest of beings, he was discontented with a formal 
inferiority of rank. His crime consisted in rapaciously 
grasping at a power which was, in all but the name, his 
own. The Christ, in contrast, was satisfied with the 
substance ; he willingly resigned pretension to the 
position. But the Greek mythus was the reflection 
of a legend from the farther East, and came to this 
author more naturally through Judaism than through 
Paganism. According to Neander's classification the 
Gnostics, from whom this theosophic conception came, 



100 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

were Judaistic. Gieseler's classification leads to the 
same inference, for the Alexandrian Gnosis was the 
product of Greek thought, blended with Jewish. The 
classification of Gieseler has regard to the source 
whence the speculation came ; that of Neander to the 
tendency of the speculation. In whichever aspect we 
view the myth, its Jewish character is apparent. 
The writer has pushed his speculations into new fields 
that yet lay within the ancestral domain. He de- 
scribes the Christ as being but the semblance of a man, 
in "fashion " a man, not in substance. The thought 
is a further development, yet a strictly logical one, of 
Paul's idea that the Christ was made " in the likeness 
of sinful flesh." The two expressions are parallel, in 
fact identical ; " body," in Pauline phrase being, from 
the nature of the case, " sinful body." The writer 
speaks of the dominion of the Christ as extended over 
the three spheres, heaven, earth, and the under-world ; 
scarcely thereby enlarging the scope of a previous 
thought, for as much as these spheres were compre- 
hended in the dominion of the Christ who " created 
the worlds," the new worlds that constituted the new 
creation, whereof he was Lord. 

The letter to the Hebrews, an exceedingly elaborate 
exposition of the close relation between the new faith 
.and the old, an argument and a plea for the new faith 
as containing in substance all that the old contained 
in form, is Jewish in coloring throughout, an exaggera- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 10 1 

tion of Jewish ideas. The argument is that Chris- 
tianity excels Judaism in its own excellencies. The 
Christ is called " high priest," " perpetual priest," 
possessing the power to confer endless life. By the 
sacrifice of himself he has entered at once into the 
holy of holies. He has tasted death for every man — 
another way of saying that he has deprived death for 
every man of its bitterness. He has destroyed the 
devil who held the kingdom of death. He has recon- 
ciled man with God by abolishing death, and with 
death sin, which is the strength of death. The Christ 
is represented as the author of salvation to all that 
obey him ; he lives forever to make intercession ; 
his blood purges men's consciences from reliance on 
dead works ; he, once for all, has devoted himself to 
bear the sins of many ; he will come again, and bring 
salvation to such as wait for him ; all these are merely 
completed expressions of the idea enunciated by Paul. 
The Christ himself is described in this epistle as 
" the appointed heir of all things ;" " the brightness of 
God's glory and the express image of His person ; " 
" upholding all things by the word of His power ; " 
"the First Begotten;" "the object of adoration by 
the angels." To support this view, the Old Testa- 
ment is ingeniously quoted and misapplied. The in- 
fluence of Jewish thought appears also in the pas- 
sages that describe the Christ as an agent, appointed 
to his office ; an official, " sitting at the right hand of 



102 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

the Majesty on High ; " as fulfilling His mission and 
obtaining His glory through suffering ; as subjected 
to human experiences of temptation ; as strictly sub- 
ordinate to God. 

The scriptures entitled " Colossians " and " Ephe- 
sians " betray still greater familiarity with Alexandro- 
Jewish conceptions, and a yet deeper sympathy with 
them. The Christ is here " the image of God, the 
first-born of every creature." It is declared that " by 
Him were all things created that are in heaven and 
on earth ; things visible and invisible ; thrones, do- 
minions, principalities, powers ; by Him and for Him 
they were created." " He is far above all principality, 
and power, and might, and dominion, and every name 
that is named, whether in this world or the world to 
come." He is " all in all." He is the pleroma, the 
fulness, the abyss of possibility. " The fulness of 
the Godhead dwells in Him visibly." He exhausts 
the divine capacity of expression. He is the reality 
of God. Towards mankind he is the reconciler. In 
him " all things are gathered together in one." By 
the blood of his cross he has made peace and recon- 
ciled all things to himself ; things on earth and 
things in heaven. In a striking passage, the writer 
of " Ephesians" describes the Christ as first descend- 
ing into the under world to release the captives bound 
in the chains of Satan, and thence ascending up on 
high and sending down gifts to men. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 103 

Both of these compositions abound in Gnostic 
phraesology. The abstruse terms " Mystery," " Wis" 
dom," " yEon," " Prince of the Powers " recur again 
and again, and always with the cabalistic meaning. 
The writers are caught in the meshes of Oriental 
speculation, and apparently make no effort to extri- 
cate themselves. On the contrary, they welcome 
their enthralment, taking the binding cords to be 
guiding strings towards the truth. So far, again, 
instead of escaping from the Jewish tradition we are 
tethered to it more securely than before. The litera- 
ture of the New Testament is seen to be still a con- 
tinuation and completion of the literature of the Old. 
The earliest form of the Messianic doctrine is com- 
pletely distanced. Scarcely a trace of it remains. Of 
the throne of David not a word. Not a word of 
Moses and the Prophets, of the historical fulfilment 
of ancient prediction, of the temple worship, of the 
chosen people. Pharisees and Sadducees are alike 
omitted. The very word "kingdom," as denoting a 
visible Messianic reign, is dropped. But the territory 
of Judaism has not been abandoned. Galilee is de- 
serted ; Jerusalem is overthrown ; but the schools of 
the rabbins are open. 

It will be remarked that the moral teaching is 
more vague and mystical than it was in the early 
time. The theological spirit prevails over the human ; 
the ecclesiastical supersedes the ethical. Practical 



IC4 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

principle is postponed to theoretical doctrine. The 
virtues prescribed are ghostly, technical ; the graces 
of a church, not the qualities of a brotherhood. The 
intellectual air is thinner and more difficult to inhale. 
The spiritual atmosphere is not inspiring. Intelli- 
gence can make nothing of writing like this : " The 
husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the 
head of the Church ; and He is the Saviour of the 
body. Therefore, as the Church is subject to Christ, 
so let wives be subject in all things to their husbands. 
Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved 
the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might 
sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by 
the Word ; that He might present it to Himself a 
glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any 
such thing ; but that it should be holy and without 
blemish." The absence of rational ground for duty 
in the most familiar relations of life could not be 
more explicitly declared than in a passage like this. 
That such an age should have had a scientific system 
of morality cannot be expected ; but that the tra- 
ditional system should have been lost, and a fantas- 
tical one set up in its place, is a testimony to the 
influence of the mystical spirit. The fanciful morality 
of a small and enthusiastic body may be interesting 
to the members of the body and influential on their 
conduct ; but it is no evidence of health in the moral 
constitution of the generation. The representation 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 105 

of the Christian warfare as a conflict " not against 
flesh and blood," — that is, against organized evil in 
society and the State,—" but against principalities, 
against powers, against the princes of darkness, 
against wicked spirits that dwell in the air," is 
another evidence that conscience had become vision- 
ary. Such reasoning is of a piece with the argument 
for there being four gospels and no more, namely, that 
there were four quarters of the heaven, and four 
winds ; or with the argument for perpetual virginity, 
that it supplied the Church with vestals. Such theol- 
ogising shows how far speculation may be separated 
from reality and yet be entertained by human minds. 



VII. 

THE LAST GOSPEL. 

The author of the fourth Gospel is unknown, but 
it is incredible that this wonderful book, wonderful 
for finish of literary execution as well as for vigor of 
intellectual conception, was written by a Galilean 
fisherman ; a man of brooding and morbid disposition, 
whose intemperate zeal earned for him the title " son 
of thunder;" who, according to Luke, proposed to 
call down fire from heaven to consume certain 
Samaritans that declined to receive the master; who, 
according to the same authority, rebuked certain 
others that conjured by the Christ's name, but did not 
join his company; who, through his mother, asked 
for one of the best seats in the " kingdom ; " a man 
who was most intimately associated with the James 
described in a former chapter ; a man who late in life, 
had a reputation for intolerance which started a 
tradition of him to the effect that being in the public 
bath, and seeing enter the heretic Cerinthus, he 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. IO7 

rushed out, calling on all others to follow, if they 
would not be overwhelmed by the ruin such a blas- 
phemer would pull down on their heads. All the 
traditions respecting John are to the same purport; 
his constant association with James and Peter, both 
disciples of the narrowest creed ; his advocacy of 
chiliasm, the doctrine of the millennial reign of a 
thousand years, as testified to by Ephesian presby- 
ters on the authority of Irenaeus ; the description 
of him, reported by Eusebius, as a " high priest wear- 
ing the mitre," standing in the order of succession 
therefore as a hierarch of the ancient dispensation, a 
churchman maintaining the ancient symbolical rites. 

That such a composition as the fourth Gospel 
was written by such a man, in his old age too, the 
laws of literary criticism cannot admit. To the pres- 
ent writer the ungenuineness of the fourth Gospel has 
for several years seemed as distinctly proved as any 
point in literary criticism can be. To maintain the 
Johannean origin of the book, it must be assumed that 
the apostle lived to an extreme old age, nearly double 
the full three score years and ten allotted to man- 
kind ; that his entire nature changed in the interval 
between his youth and his senility ; that, without 
studying in the schools, he became a profound 
adept in speculative philosophy ; and that by the 
same miraculous bestowment, he acquired a skill in 
letters surpassing that of any in his generation, far 



108 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

surpassing that of Paul, who was an educated man, 
and completely casting into the shade Philo, the best 
scholar of a former era. All this, too, must be as- 
sumed, for there is not a fragment of the evidence to 
support the bold presumption of authorship. 

The book belongs nearer to the middle than the 
beginning of the second century, and is the result of 
an attempt to present the Christ as the incarnate 
Word of God. The author is not obliged to go far to 
find his materials ; they lie ready shaped to his hand 
in the writings of Philo and the Gnostics of his cen- 
tury. The thread of Hebrew tradition, has, by this 
time, become exceedingly thin ; vestiges of the pop- 
ular Jewish conception appear, but faintly, here and 
there. Nicodemus recognizes the divine character of 
the Christ by his power to work miracles. The 
Christ respects the tradition which accorded special 
privileges to the genuine " children of Abraham ; " he 
declares to the woman of Samaria that " salvation is of 
the Jews ;" he announces that eternal life consists in 
the knowledge of God, and the acceptance of his Son. 
Moses is said to have written of the Christ. Father 
Abraham rejoiced to see his day. Isaiah sang his 
glory, and spake of him. The brazen serpent is a 
type of his mission to deliver. 

For the rest, the conceptions of deity, of provi- 
dence, of salvation, of the eternal world, are quite 
different from the recognized Hebrew conceptions — 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. IO9 

the title given to God sixty times in the gospel, 
while the word " God," occurs less than twenty, is 
" Father," and this term is used, not in the sense of 
Matthew's " Our Father in Heaven," which describes 
the Old Testament Jehovah under his more amiable 
aspect, but rather as designating the abyss of potential 
being, as the term is employed in the trinitarian 
formula, in which the Godhead is broken up into 
three distinctions ; the declaration " God is Spirit," 
or, as the language equally well permits, " Spirit is 
God," intimates that the individuality of God has 
disappeared, that the idea of deity has become intel- 
lectual. The one hundred and thirty-ninth psalm 
expresses perhaps as mystical an apprehension of 
God as the old Hebrew thought admits of, but that 
psalm retains the divine individuality ; the limits are 
nowhere transgressed ; it is a sympathetic, regardful 
eye that searches the secret place, and an attentive 
mind that notes the unarticulated thought. The 
intelligence loses no point of clearness in becoming 
penetrative. But in the fourth Gospel, the individ- 
uality is gone altogether. The Father " loveth," but 
with an abstract, impersonal sympathy ; the Father 
" draweth," but with an organic, elemental attraction ; 
the Father " hath life in himself," and hath given the 
Son to "have life in himself;" but neither the pos- 
session nor the communication of this power implies 
the bestowal of a concrete gift. The Father "judg- 



TIO THE CRADLE OF THE CHRTST. 

eth no man, but hath given all judgment to the Son " 
— a phrase intimating that he had gone into retire- 
ment, had withdrawn from active interest in human 
concerns, had sunk into the depths of the Absolute. 
The expression " God is Spirit," taken alone, conveys 
no idea that is not contained in the Hebrew concep- 
tion of the formless Jehovah ; but when taken in con- 
nection with other expressions, it is seen to convey 
something more, and something different. The 
formless God may be strictly local; the "Spirit" is 
diffused. 

In this book, the Christ takes the place of God, 
as the revealed or manifest God ; he is the Logos, 
the incarnate word. He was with God in the begin- 
ning." " All things were made by him." "In him 
was life, and the life was the light of men." " He 
hath life in himself." He is the only begotten son, 
who came down from heaven; he is in heaven. All 
judgment is committed to him ; in him the divine 
glory is manifest ; apart from him is no spiritual life ; 
he is the vine, the door ; he is the intercessor through 
whom prayer must be transmitted in order to be 
made availing. 

The divine presence is taken out of nature, and 
transferred to the spiritual world ; God is made 
ecclesiastical and dogmatic. Men are saved, not 
by natural piety and excellence, but by faith in the 
Christ as the Logos. The whole sum of Christianity 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. Ill 

is conveyed in this one position : the manifestation 
of the Divine Glory in the Only Begotten Son. This 
manifestation is of itself, the coming of salvation, the 
gift of God's life to mankind. By this, the Christ 
overcomes the powers of darkness and evil. He has 
come a light into the world ; by him come grace and 
truth ; to believe in him is a sign of God's working. 
He that cometh to him shall never hunger ; he that 
believeth on him shall never thirst. It is enough 
that blind men believe ; to die, believing in him, is to 
live ; to live, believing in him, is to be saved from 
the power of death, and made immortal. To believe 
in him is the same thing as to believe in the Father. 
Not to believe in him, is to be consigned to spiritual 
death with sinners ; to believe on the Son is to have 
everlasting life. This idea recurs with monotonous 
perseverance, some sixty times. 

That this conception of the Christ is not original 
with our author has already been said many times. 
It had been in the world two hundred years before 
his day, and had worked its way into the substance of 
the later Jewish thought. The personification of the 
divine reason early occurred to the Jews who had 
been touched with the passion for speculation in the 
city of Alexandria. Long ago attention was called by 
Andrews Norton, among ourselves, to bold personifica- 
tions of wisdom and the divine reason, in the Apocry- 
pha of the Old Testament. " She is the breath of 



112 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

the power of God, a pure influence proceeding from 
the glory of the Almighty. She is the brightness of 
the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the 
power of God, and the image of his goodness." Chap- 
ters seven and eight of the Book of Wisdom contain 
an apotheosis of wisdom as the creative power. In 
the eighteenth chapter the imagery grows much 
stronger. " Thine almighty word leaped down from 
heaven out of thy royal throne, as a fierce man-of- 
war into the midst of a land of destruction." The 
twenty-fourth chapter of Ecclesiasticus is devoted to 
the same theme. The Word is described as a being : 
the first born of God ; the active agent in creation ; 
having its dwelling-place in Israel, its seat in the Law 
of Moses. 

Philo pushes the speculation much further. The 
Logos is with him a most interesting subject of dis- 
course, tempting him to wonderful feats of imagina- 
tion. There is scarcely a personifying or exalting 
epithet that he does not bestow on the divine Reason. 
He describes it as a distinct being ; calls it " A 
Rock," "The Summit of the Universe," "Before All 
Things," "First-begotten Son of God," "Eternal 
Bread from Heaven," " Fountain of Wisdom," "Guide 
to God," " Substitute for God," " Image of God," 
" Priest," " Creator of the Worlds," " Second God," 
" Interpreter of God," " Ambassador of God," "Power 
of God," " King," " Angel," " Man," " Mediator," 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. II3 

" Light," "The Beginning," "The East," "The Name 
of God," " Intercessor." The curious on this subject 
may consult Liicke's Introduction to the Fourth Gos- 
pel, or Gfrorer's Philo, and he will be more than satis- 
fied that the Logos of the fourth Gospel is the same 
as Philo' s, and has the same origin. 

Christian scholars who admit this have been 
anxious to break the force of the inference, by allow- 
ing the similarity of the conception and then suppos- 
ing the evangelist to have stated the doctrine that he 
might stamp it as heresy. But he nowhere does 
stamp it as heresy. He puts it boldly on the front of 
his exposition and constructs his whole work in con- 
formity with it. Instead of refuting it or denouncing 
it, he carries the idea out in all its applications, sup- 
plementing it with a completeness that Philo never 
thought of. 

The Logos becomes a man ; " is made flesh ; " 
appears as an incarnation ; in order that the God 
whom " no man has seen at any time," may be mani- 
fested. He has no parentage ; is not born, even 
supernaturally ; he passes through no childish pas- 
sages ; receives no nurture in a home ; has no ex- 
perience of growth or development. The incident of 
his baptism by John in the sacred river is carefully 
excluded, that whole episode, so important in the 
earliest narratives, being dismissed in the phrase, 

" Upon whom thou shalt see the spirit descending, 

8 



114 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

and remaining on him, the same is he that baptizeth 
with the Holy Ghost." John says of him : "This is 
he that, coming after me, is preferred before me, for 
he existed before me." " I saw the spirit descending 
from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him." " I 
knew him not, but came, baptizing with water, that he 
might be made manifest to Israel." " I am a voice 
crying in the desert." Every word negatives the 
notion that the Logos received consecration at the 
hands of a prophet of the old dispensation. He is 
pre-existent ; he comes from heaven ; he is full of 
grace and truth; of his fulness all have received, 
grace upon grace. 

The temptation is omitted for the same reason. 
The divine word cannot, even in form, undergo the 
experience of moral discipline. The bare suggestion 
of evil taint is foreign to him. He must not come 
near enough to evil to repel it. A dramatic scene in 
Matthew represents the conflict between the Messiah 
and the Prince of the World ; a conflict inconceivable 
in the case of a divine being who is, by nature, Lord 
of the entire spiritual universe, — whose mere appear- 
ance dispels the night. 

Even the story of the transfiguration, which in 
some respects would seem admirably illustrative of 
the logos theory, is omitted, probably for the reason 
that Moses and Elias are the prominent personages 
in it. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. II5 

As a thing of course, the agony in the garden of 
Gethseraane is unmentioned. A suggestion of it 
occurs in a previous chapter, (XII. 27), but in another 
connection, and for an opposite purpose, namely, to 
extort a tribute to the glory of the Logos. 

The cross on which the Word is suspended, is 
transfigured into an elevation of honor. On it the 
Son of God endures no mortal agony; by it he is 
" lifted up " that he may " draw all men " unto him. 
His crucifixion is a consummation, a triumph. He 
mounts, shows himself, and vanishes away. The 
suffering is an appearance of suffering. The shame 
is turned to glory. The tormentors are agents in ac- 
complishing a transformation. The god passes, with- 
out a groan or an expression of weakness ; clear as ever 
in his perceptions, seeing his mother and the beloved 
disciple standing together, he says : " woman, behold 
thy son ; son, behold thy mother." Knowing that all 
things were now accomplished, that the scripture 
might be fulfilled, he said " I thirst ; " having received 
the vinegar, he remarked "it is finished," bowed his 
head, and gave up the ghost. From his dead form 
issue streams of water and blood, a last sign, as the 
conversion of water into wine was the first, that the 
dispensation of Law, symbolized by John's water 
baptism, and the dispensation of the spirit symbolized 
by wine and by blood, were both completed in him. 

The resurrection of the Christ is not described as 



Il6 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

the resurrection of a body, but as the apparition of a 
spiritual form. It is not recognized by Mary through 
any external resemblance to a former self, but through 
a spiritual impression ; it stands suddenly before her, 
forbids her touch, is not palpable, and as suddenly dis- 
appears ; the Logos ascends " to the Father ; " returns, 
bringing the spirit that he had promised ; enters the 
chamber where the disciples are gathered, the door 
being carefully closed from fear of the Jews, enters 
without opening the door, is visible for an instant/ 
and is no more seen ; re-enters for the purpose of 
giving palpable demonstration of his reality to the 
doubting Thomas, who, however does not accept it, 
receives the skeptic's homage and again disappears. 

These apparitions and occultations are frequent in 
the gospel, the Christ's outward form being only a 
fagade, removable at pleasure. The numerous comings 
and goings, hidings, disclosures, presences, absences, 
are accounted for on this supposition, better than 
on any other. He goes up to the feast at Jerusalem, 
not openly, but "as it were in secret," veiled, disguis- 
ed. He comes before the crowd many of whom must 
have been familiar with his person, but is unrecog- 
nized ; he discloses himself for a moment, speaks 
exciting words that raise a tumult, and then, at the 
height of the turmoil, becomes invisible. " They 
sought to take him ; but no man laid hands on him, 
for his hour was not yet come" On a subsequent oc- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. liy 

casion his hearers, intensely aroused by his language, 
took up stones to cast at him ; but he " hid himself, 
and went out of the temple, going though the midst 
of them, and so passed by." His enemies sought to 
take him, but "he escaped out of their hands." Hav- 
ing spoken, he departs, and hides himself ; but again, 
without apparently changing his locality or absenting 
himself for any period, he is again heard proclaiming 
his mission. 

There is no history in this book. The incarnate 
Word can have no history. His career being theologi- 
cal, the events in it cannot be other than spectral. 
He is not in the world of cause and effect. His ac- 
tions are phenomenal ; the passages of his life do not 
open into one another, do not lead anywhere ; nothing 
follows anything else, nothing moves ; there is no 
progress towards development. The biography is a 
succession of scenes, a diorama. There are no se- 
quences or consequences. Stones are taken up, but 
never thrown ; hands are uplifted to strike, but no 
blow is delivered. The movement to arrest is never 
carried out. The miracles are not deeds of power or 
mercy, they are signs, thrown out to attract popular 
attention, demonstrations of the divine presence ; some- 
times merely symbolical foresh ado wings or interpreta- 
tions of speculative ideas, as in the case of the turning 
of water into wine at the " marriage feast ; " the open- 
ing of the blind man's eyes, signifying that he was 



Il8 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

come a light into the world ; the resurrection of Laza- 
rus, a scenic commentary on the text, " I am the 
resurrection and the life." These are pictures not per- 
formances. None of them are mentioned in the earlier 
traditions, for the probable reason that they never oc- 
curred, never were rumored to have occurred. They 
were designed by the artist of the fourth Gospel, for 
his private gallery of illustrations. The artist was a 
Greek Jew who took Hebrew ideals for his models, 
but he was sometimes obliged to go far to find them. 
The hint for the conversion of the water into wine, 
may have come from the legends of Israelite sojourn 
in Egypt, where Moses, the first deliverer, turned 
water into blood, the mystical synonym of wine ; 
Elisha may have furnished a study for the elaborate 
picture of the blind man's cure, and Isaiah may have 
supplied the motive for it, in his famous prophecy that 
the eyes of the blind shall be opened. The studies 
for the grand cartoon of Lazarus were made possibly 
while the artist mused over the stories of Elijah rais- 
ing the son of the widow, or of Elisha reviving one 
already dead by mere contact with his bones. 

In the veins of the Logos flows no passionate blood. 
His language is vehement, but suggests no corres- 
ponding emotion ; the words are not vascular. Cer- 
tain superficial peculiarities of these discourses are 
noticeable at once, their length, their stateliness, their 
absoluteness, their loud-voiced, declamatory character, 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. II9 

their oracular tone. But little scrutiny is required to 
discover that they are monotones ; that their theme 
is always the same, namely, the claims of the Christ ; 
that they unfold no system of moral or spiritual teach- 
ing, proceed in no rational order, arrive at no conclu- 
sions ; that they contain no arguments, answer no 
questions, meet no inquiring states of mind ; that they 
resemble orations more than discourses of any other 
kind, but are unlike orations, in having neither begin- 
ning middle nor end, in quite lacking point and ap- 
plication, in proceeding no whither, in simply stand- 
ing still and reiterating the same sublime abstractions, 
without regard to logical or rhetorical proprieties. 

This being discovered, the conclusion follows 
swiftly, that the divine Logos could not discourse 
otherwise. His addresses, like his deeds, are designed 
to be revelations of himself ; expressions, not of his 
thoughts, but of his being, not of his character, but of 
his nature. They are the Word made articulate, as 
his wonders are the Word made mighty, as his form is 
the Word made visible. A human being, seeking to 
convince, persuade, instruct mankind, will from neces- 
sity pursue a different course from the divine Reason 
presenting itself to " the world." Its very audiences 
are impersonal, consisting not of individuals or of 
parties, but of abstractions labelled "Jews," who come 
like shadows, so depart. 

So unhuman is the Christ, so entirelv without 



120 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

near relations with mankind, that when he has left 
the world, a substitute may be provided for him, in 
the shape of the Holy Spirit, another personality pro- 
ceeding from him and his Father, and appointed to 
complete his work ; to reprove the world of sin, of 
righteousness, and of judgment ; to guide the disci- 
ples into all truth ; to bring to their remembrance all 
that had been said to them ; to comfort them, and 
abide with them for ever. The idea loses itself in 
vagueness at times, now being identified with the 
Christ, now appearing as a Spirit of Truth, now being 
an indwelling presence, now an effluence from the 
Logos. But all the while something like an individ- 
ual consciousness is preserved ; the spirit is as pal- 
pable as the Logos himself was. Here is already the 
germ of a trinity maturing within the bosom of the 
Hebrew monotheism. The process has been simple ; 
the consecutive steps have been inevitable. But in 
the process the solid ground of Judaism has been 
left ; the massive substance of the ancient faith has 
been melted into cloud. 

How entirely nebulous it has become under the 
action of speculative mind is strikingly apparent on 
examination of the ethical characteristics of the 
fourth gospel. The concrete virtues of the ancient 
race, the honest human righteousness and charity 
have disappeared, and in their place are certain spect- 
ral "graces" which have quality of a technical, but 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 121 

little of a human sort. That, according to the Logos 
doctrine men are saved, not by natural goodness or 
piety but by faith in the Christ, is written all over the 
book. But this is not the point. It is not enough 
that character has no saving power, it is dispensed 
with ; and instead of it, something is set up which 
possesses none of the elements of character. The 
compact principles of human duty which hold so large 
a place in the old Testament scriptures, and are so 
essential in the earliest Messianic conception, are not 
found here, at all. The sermon on the mount is 
omitted. The beatitudes are unmentioned. The 
parables are not remembered. There is no chapter in 
the book that bears comparison in point of moral vigor 
or nobleness with the twelfth chapter of Romans, or 
the thirteenth chapter of Corinthians. Humanity has 
shrunk to the dimensions of an incipient Christen- 
dom. The men and women whom the Jesus of Mat- 
thew addresses, to whom Paul makes appeal, are men 
and women no more ; not even Jews by race, not 
even a knot of radical Jews ; they are " disciples," 
" believers," " brethren." Christians, not fellow men, 
are to love one another. " So shall ye be my disci- 
ples, if ye have love one for another." " By this shall 
all men know that ye are my disciples." Of the broad 
human love, the recognition of brotherhood on the 
human ground, duty to love those who are not disci- 
ples, there is not a word. The common/^////, not the 



122 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

common nature, is the bond. The promises in the 
fourteenth chapter, the warnings in the fifteenth, the 
counsel in the sixteenth, the consecration in the 
seventeenth are all for the believers, not for the doers ; 
for the doers only so far as they are believers, and 
within the limits of the believing community. The 
tender word "love" shrinks to ecclesiastical propor- 
tions. " If a man love me he will keep my words ; 
and my Father will love him, and we will come to 
him, and make our abode with him ; " but the words 
are not words of exhortation to practical righteous- 
ness, they are words of admonition against unbelief. 
" If ye love me, keep my commandments ; " but the 
commandments are not the wholesome enactments of 
the Hebrew decalogue, but a bidding to " walk by the 
light while ye have the light," " to do the will of Him 
that sent me," which is " to believe on him whom He 
hath sent." " He that believeth not is condemned 
already in his not believing in the only begotten Son 
of God." There is no sweeter word than "love;" 
there is no more comprehensive law than the law of 
love ; but when love is changed from a virtue to a 
sentiment, and when the duty of practising it is lim- 
ited to members of a doctrinal communion, the prac- 
tical issue is more likely to be sectarian narrowness 
than human fellowship. 

As the speculation rises the spectral character of 
the morality becomes more startling. The so-called 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 23 

epistles of John carry the Logos idea considerably 
further than the gospel does. The mission of the 
Logos is more sharply discriminated. He is described 
as a sin offering. " He is the propitiation for our 
sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of 
the whole world." " The blood of Jesus Christ 
cleanses us from all sin." " He was manifested to take 
away our sins, and in Him is no sin." The word 
" manifested" is the key to the doctrine. " The Son 
of God was manifested that He might destroy the 
works of the devil." It is the same conception as in 
the gospel ; the Prince of Light confronting the Prince 
of Darkness, shaming him and attracting away his sub- 
jects. The anti-Christ now comes into view ; the sin 
unto death is named ; the second advent is announced, 
though not according to the millennial anticipations of 
a former day. " He that denieth that Jesus is the 
Christ is a liar." " Every spirit that confesses that 
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God." " Every 
spirit which confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come 
in the flesh is not of God." Belief or unbelief in the 
incarnation of the Logos is made the test of one's 
spiritual relationship, marking him as a candidate for 
eternal felicity in the realm of the blessed, or as a 
victim of endless misery in the realm of Satan. Thus 
the very heart of natural goodness is eaten out. Of 
virtue there remains small trace. A great deal of very 
strong language is used about sin, but sins are not 



124 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

particularized. Sin, as an abstraction, a principle, a 
power, a force, a deep seated taint in the nature, 
ineradicable except by the infusion of a new spirit of 
life, is represented as the dreadful thing ; and Love, 
another abstraction, is raised to honor as a spiritual 
grace, equally unconnected with the human will. 
" Beloved, let us love one another ; for love is of God, 
and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth 
God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God 
is Love." The words have a deep and tender sound. 
But the consideration that " the beloved " are those 
only who confess that Jesus Christ is come in the 
flesh, that all others are the reverse of " beloved," 
causes that neither the depth nor the sweetness re- 
mains. The love does not mean compassion, or pity, 
or good-will, or helpfulness ; it has no reference to 
the poor, the needy, the sick, sorrowful, wicked ; it 
has no downward look, is destitute of humility, is as 
far as can well be from the love described by Paul in 
his perfect lyric. It is, we may say, the opposite of 
that, being a quality that distinguishes the elect from 
the non-elect, and makes their special election the 
more sure. 

The literary character of the fourth gospel must 
be remarked on as a peculiar indication of the mental 
exhaustion that accompanies the last stages of an 
intellectual movement. The literature of the century 
preceding Jesus fairly throbs with personal vitality. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 12$ 

It is scarcely more than an expression of individual 
energies. The earliest writings of the New Testa- 
ment, the genuine letters of Paul, are animated in 
every line by his own vehement personality ; the 
speculative portions of them stir the blood, so real 
are the issues presented, so vital are the interests at 
stake. Shapeless, and sometimes incoherent, the 
thoughts tumble out of the writer's overcharged heart. 
The Christ is an ideal personage, but his mission is 
tremendously real ; we are moved by a battle cry as 
the apostle's ideas burst upon us. 

The literature of the succeeding period, though 
more elaborate and self-conscious, bearing traces of 
reflection, and even artifice in composition, is yet 
warm with the presence of a real purpose. But the 
fourth gospel is a purely literary work ; a composition, 
the production of an artist in language. Its author, 
perhaps because he was simply an artist in language, 
is unknown. Trace of an historical Jesus in it there 
is none. No breath from the world of living men 
blows through it ; no stir of social existence, no move- 
ment of human affairs ruffles its calm surface. The 
people are not real people, the issues are not real 
issues, the conflict is not a real conflict. We have a 
book, not a gospel. 

The writer formally announces the subject of his 
spiritual drama, and then proceeds to develop it, 
according to approved rules of literary art. First 



126 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

comes the prologue, setting forth in a few sententious 
passages the cardinal idea of the piece. This occu- 
pies eighteen verses of the first chapter, and is followed 
by the introduction of John the Baptist and his testi- 
mony. This occupies eighteen verses more. ' The 
manifestation of the Logos to the first company of 
disciples is described with due circumstance in the 
remainder of the chapter. The symbolical opening 
of the public ministry, at Cana, the first open "mani- 
festation of the glory " in the miracle of turning water 
into wine, by which is signified the calling to substi- 
tute a spiritual for a natural order, occupies the first 
ten verses of the second chapter. Then the ministry 
of revelation begins, with signs and demonstrations. 
The city of Jerusalem is chosen as the scene of it ; 
and the scene never changes for longer than a mo- 
ment, and then it changes without historical, or bio- 
graphical motive. The cleansing of the temple is 
placed at the beginning, with undisguised purpose to 
announce his claim, and the dialectical contest is 
opened. Nicodemus, "a ruler of the Jews," seeks a 
nocturnal interview, betrays the ignorance of the king- 
dom which characterizes all save the regenerate, even 
the wisest, and gives occasion to the Christ to declare 
the intrinsic superiority of the Son of God, and the 
conditions of salvation through him ; Nicodemus fur- 
nishing the starting point for a lofty declamation 
which soars beyond him into the region of trans- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 27 

cendental ideas. The Baptist, instead of doubting, 
as in Matthew, and sending an embassy to the Christ to 
ascertain the reasons of his not disclosing himself, is 
himself questioned by skeptical disciples, and re- 
assures them by words that are an echo of the Christ's 
own. 

The interview with the woman of Samaria is 
introduced for the purpose of extracting another con- 
fession of the Christ's supremacy from a different 
order of mind. Nicodemus represented Judaism in 
its pride of authority and learning. The woman of 
Samaria represents the ignorant, superstitious, yet 
stubborn idolatry reckoned by the Jews as no better 
than heathenism ; her " five husbands " are the five 
sects into which Judaism was divided. She too is 
pictured to us as sitting by a well and drawing water. 
The conversation begins with the Christ's declaration 
of his power to create perennial springs of water in 
the heart, and leads immediately up to the great dis- 
closure of himself. Superstition, like superciliousness, 
listens and is persuaded. The mention of Galilee is 
necessary to account for the episode in Samaria, but 
nothing occurs there. The next scene is laid again 
in Jerusalem. The water oi Bethesda is brought into 
competition with the quickening spirit of the Christ ; 
the cure of the sick man introduces a mystical dis- 
course on the spiritual sufficiency of the Son of God 

Another scene is presented, and once more in 



128 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

Jerusalem. Another series of tableaux is arranged. 
This time the Christ is pictured as breaking bread 
and walking on zvater, whence occasion is taken to 
descant on the bread of life. For the purpose of mak- 
ing a fresh appearance in Jerusalem, and presenting 
his claim under a new aspect, Galilee is called into 
requisition again, but as usual, the drama is enacted 
in Jerusalem, which is the centre of the opposition. 
This time, the Christ, having declined to go up in his 
own character to meet his critics, goes up in disguise, 
incognito, and amazes the congregated multitude by 
his superb assumptions of authority, and his over- 
whelming denunciations of all who do not receive 
him ; denunciations so uncompromising, that dissen- 
sions are created. " Some would have taken him, but 
none laid hands on him." As always, the demon- 
stration results in bringing out his friends and ene- 
mies, in showing who were and who were not his 
own, which is the aim and end of every manifestation. 
The Logos presents himself, makes his statement, 
asserts his prerogative, offers the alternative of spirit- 
ual life or death, and retires, leaving the result to the 
spiritual laws. 

The story of the woman taken in adultery which 
immediately follows this passage, probably made no 
part of the original gospel, as it appears out of all 
connection. It is pronounced by some of the best 
critics to be ungenuine. The obvious improbability 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 29 

of its incidents, the locality of it, — the Mount of Olives, 
— the Christ's mysterious proceeding of writing on the 
ground, and his unaccountable verdict, deprive the 
tale of ail but literary interest. It is interesting in a 
literary point of view, or would be if it were set in 
literary relations ; for it illustrates the Christ's suprem- 
acy, his supernatural power of rebuke and insight, 
his authority to grant absolution on purely theological 
grounds. The doctrine that none but the guiltless 
are entitled to pronounce sentence on guilt would put 
an end to censorship of every kind, but is quite in 
accordance with the ethical tone of the book. The 
author however, turns the incident to no account, but 
proceeds with new scenes in his speculative drama. 
" I am the light of the world ; he that followeth me 
shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of 
life ; " the Christ enters once more into the old debate, 
once more the claim is challenged, once more the 
angry discussion flows on, becoming, at this juncture 
more violent than ever ; terrible denunciations leap 
from the divine lips ; the adversaries are called a 
devil's brood, liars, murderers at heart. At the close 
of the final outburst, the unseen hands raise the 
visionary stones, but "Jesus hid himself, went out of 
the temple, going through the midst of them, and so 
passed by." 

The speech however is continued ; the main doc- 
trine of it, namely that the Christ is the Light of the 

9 



130 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

World, being illustrated by the miracle of giving 
sight to a man " blind from his birth," — the story 
being told at great length and with exceedingly 
minute detail, so as to cover every point of circum- 
stance. This seems to be a critical moment in the 
development of the idea. The vehemence subsides 
for a time, and the light of the world shines gently as 
a shepherd's lantern showing wandering sheep the 
way to the true fold. But the softest word stirs up 
anger ; the " Jews" take up stones, not to throw them, 
but to exhibit temper, and the act closes tranquilly 
like those that preceded it. 

The resurrection of Lazarus prepares the way for 
the closing scenes. That such a story, so artificially 
constructed, so evidently introduced for effect, told 
by one writer and not as much as alluded to by the 
others, told with so much circumstance and with so 
little regard for biographical probability, told for a 
dogmatical purpose, and fitted into the narrative at 
the precise juncture where a turning point was 
wanted, should be accepted as history by any unfet- 
tered mind ; that a critic like Renan, professing a 
profound reverence for the character of Jesus, should 
have admitted it as in some sense true, and should 
have been driven in explanation of it to a theory utterly 
fatal to the moral character of the "colossal" man he 
celebrates, thus sacrificing the moral greatness of Jesus 
to a perverse sense of historical truth, proves the 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I3I 

obstinacy of traditional prejudice. The narrative is 
too evidently a literary device, one would think, to 
deceive anybody of awakened discernment. Its mani- 
fest artifice is such that it alone would be enough to 
cast suspicion on all the miraculous narrations of the 
book. 

" From that day forth the Jews took counsel to- 
gether to put him to death." The crisis has come, 
and events hasten on towards the catastrophe, which, 
as has been said, was no catastrophe, but a consum- 
mation. Mary, instead of sitting at his feet as a dis- 
ciple, anoints them with spikenard and wipes them 
with the hair of her head ; the holy woman perform- 
ing the act elsewhere ascribed to a sinner, the act 
itself being a ceremony of consecration, instead of a 
mark of penitence. The triumphal entry into Jeru- 
salem, elsewhere described as the Messiah's own 
project, is converted into a spontaneous demonstra- 
tion in his honor, rendered by " much people," who 
had heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. " Cer- 
tain Greeks " present themselves and ask an intro- 
duction, as to a royal personage. They are the first 
fruits of the Gentile world ; their coming is welcomed 
as a sign of final victory. " The hour is come," says 
Jesus, on receiving them, " that the Son of Man should 
be glorified. The heavens echo his exclamation; an 
audible voice, interpreted as the voice of an angel, 
pronouncing the glorification certain and eternal. The 



132 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

Son of God adds his own interpretation, confirming 
that of his friends ; prophesies the speedy judgment 
of the world and his own elevation to glory by means 
of the cross, makes his last statement, and the dia- 
lectical war is at an end. 

The rest of the life is given to the disciples. The 
last supper, its agony and distress of mind omitted, is 
an occasion for impressing on " his own " the lesson 
of mutual love. The departure of Judas on his errand 
is the signal for a burst of rapture. Words of con- 
solation, mingled with promises of the " Spirit of 
Truth," " The Comforter," words of blessing too fol- 
low, intended to beget in his friends the feeling that, 
though absent, he will still be present with them. 
They are bidden to remember him as the source of 
their life ; are admonished to keep unbroken the spir- 
itual bond that unites them to him in vital sympathy ; 
are assured that the mission he came to earth to dis- 
charge will be fulfilled by the Holy Ghost ; and finally 
are solemnly consecrated by priestly supplication as 
the rescued children of God. 

The story of the arrest is told in a strain equally 
suited to the idea on which the book is constructed. In 
full consciousness of his position, Jesus steps forth out 
of the shadow of mystery to meet Judas and his troop, 
who have come, expecting to find him in his garden 
retreat. The soldiers, over-awed by the apparition, 
start backward and fall to the ground, prostrate before 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 33 

the Son of God. The trial goes on before Annas and 
Caiaphas, priests, and Pilate, Roman viceroy. The 
powers of Church and State pronounce on him ; be- 
fore the powers of Church and State he announces 
himself and makes his royal claim. In the presence 
of the High Priest, who is scarcely more than a name 
in this proceeding, introduced in order that Judaism 
might have one more opportunity of rejecting the 
majesty of heaven, Jesus suffers an indignity at the 
hands of one of the prelate's officers ; but Pilate, the 
pagan, shudders before the awful personage who tells 
him that he could have no power at all except it were 
given him from above ; that he was but a tool of provi- 
dence. The guilt of the execution is thus transferred 
from his shoulders to destiny; for the Jews, no less 
than the governor, are fated. The hour of glorifica- 
tion has come, and the Son of Man moves with stately 
step towards his ascension. 

The process of withdrawal from the visible sphere 
has already been described. It is not effected at 
once. As a lantern in the hand of one walking in 
a wood flashes out and again hides itself, becom- 
ing dimmer and dimmer until finally it quite dis 
appears, so the Son of God is many times visible 
and invisible before he vanishes altogether from sight. 
No bodily ascension is necessary to bear away one 
whose coming and going are not conditioned by 
space or time. His form has always been a trans- 



134 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

lucent veil, which could at pleasure be removed. His 
mission ended, there is no more occasion for his self- 
revelation, and he is unseen. The unreality of a 
representation like this must be too apparent to be 
argued. 

From this exposition it appears that the New Testa- 
ment literature is, in some sort, to the end, a continua- 
tion of the literature of the Old Testament. As the 
earliest phase of Christianity was Judaism, with a belief 
in the Messiah's advent superadded, so the first litera- 
ture of Christianity is the literature of Judaism, written 
on the supposition that the Christ has come. Judaism 
is Christianity still expectant of a Christ to come, or, as 
with the radical Jews,unexpectant of a personal Messiah; 
Christianity is Judaism with the expectation fulfilled. 
The Judaic element was not limited to the little knot of 
Jerusalemites who hung about the holy city and waited 
there for the Christ's coming ; it was conspicuous in 
the system of Paul, and so far from being absent from 
the later form, known by the name of John, deter- 
mines the cardinal idea of that, and shapes its bent. 
Whatever additions are made, grow out of this car- 
dinal idea, as branches from its stem. The strict 
monotheism of the Hebrew faith is sacrificed to the 
Messianic conception. The Christ in time becomes a 
twin Deity, a Holy Ghost being required to fill up the 
gulf between godhead and humanity. 

But for the fury of the discord that arose and 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 35 

deepened between the Jews who accepted the Christ 
and the Jews who preferred still to wait for him, the 
later, as well as the earlier form of Christianity, might 
possibly have been merged in Judaism. The believers 
in the Messianic advent were radical to the point of 
fanaticism. They were the restless advocates of 
change, agitators, revolutionists. Their passionate 
zeal could not brook indifference or coolness. Nothing 
short of a fervid allegiance satisfied them. The re- 
cusants had to bear hard names, as the gospels at- 
test. The ill-fortune of the Messiah, the bitter 
opposition he encountered, his untimely death, were 
charged upon the faithlessness of the nation who 
would not confess him. These, and not the Roman 
Government that actually put him to death, were held 
answerable for bis crucifixion ; thus a discord was 
planted, which all the generations of Christendom 
have failed to eradicate. There has, from that time 
to this, been implacable hatred between Christian 
and Jew. 

The separation, which might have been healed or 
obliterated, had this been the sole cause of it, was 
widened by the subsequent breach between the chris- 
tians themselves, which drew attention off from the 
previous issue. The position taken by Paul, that 
the mission of the Christ was extended to the Gentiles 
and comprehended them on precisely the same con- < 
ditions with the Jews, was exceedingly disagreeable 



I36 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

and even shocking to the conservatives, who held that 
the Christ was sent to Israel only, and especially to 
that portion of Israel that clung tenaciously to the 
traditions of the law. The necessary criticism of the 
Law which Paul's position required, the apparent 
disrespect shown to Moses and the prophets, the 
disregard of the ancestral claim set up by the " chil- 
dren of Abraham," the substitution of an interior 
principle — faith — which any heathen might adopt, for 
the old fashioned legal requirements to which none 
but orthodox Jews could conform, was hardly less than 
blasphemous in their regard ; and a feud was begun, 
which in violence and rancor, excelled the quarrel 
between the orthodox christians and the Jews. The 
traces of this controversy, plainly marked in the writ- 
ings of Paul, are visible on the literature of his own 
and of the succeeding period, and disappear only in 
the events of greater significance incident to the fall 
of Jerusalem, the complete dispersion of the Jews, and 
the blending of parties in the Western Empire. 
Ferdinand Christian Baur may have pushed too far 
in some directions, his theory that the entire gospel 
literature of the New Testament was determined as to 
its form by the exigencies of this controversy, the can- 
onical books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the " Acts 
of the Apostles " all being written in the interest 
of reconciliation ; but his fundamental position, as in 
the case of Strauss, has never been carried, or even 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 37 

shaken, by assault. The extreme points in contro- 
versy are fixed with a good deal of certainty. Paul's 
own statement in the second chapter of Galatians is 
fairly explicable only on the supposition of a violent 
collision, the nature of which is there defined, the 
bearings of which are indicated in that and in other 
undoubted writings of the apostle. Many passages 
therein are unintelligible on any other hypothesis. 
The Apocalypse and the Epistle of James, as clearly 
set forth the opposite view, in language and implication 
of the strongest kind, and in a spirit of decided an- 
tagonism. The " Acts of the Apostles " is, as else- 
where hinted, prepared with a view of making it 
appear that no controversy existed ; that Peter carried 
the gospel to the Gentiles, and that Paul insisted on 
the validity of circumcision, the mark of initiation into 
the Jewish church. The narrative is so forced, the 
incidents so artificial, the aim so evident, the limitation 
of view so marked, that the book betrays its own 
character. To admit the genuineness of the " Acts " 
is to throw into confusion the little history that we 
certainly know, and to unfix the continuity of events. 
How far the three first gospels correspond in purpose 
with the " Acts," is a nice question, which need not 
be answered here, which may be left unanswered 
without detriment to the soundness of the general 
theory. Whether or no the controversy was of such ab- 
sorbing moment, whether or no it lasted as long as Baur 



I38 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

believes, or exerted as wide an influence on literature, 
its effect in drawing the thoughts away from the 
earlier dispute between the Messianic and the anti- 
Messianic Jews, and in detaching the christians from 
their original associations is unimpaired. From the 
breaking out of that dispute, which occurred within 
fifteen or twenty years of the crucifixion, at the latest, 
Christianity followed its own law of development. 

But, though thus discarded, disowned, finally 
detested, the very name of Jew, as early as the fourth 
gospel, being associated with a stiff-necked bigotry 
impenetrable to conviction, the old religion main- 
tained its sway over the child that had taken its portion 
of goods and gone away to make a home of its own. 
The Palestinian and Asiatic literature of the young 
faith bears the stamp of its Hebrew lineage, as has 
been shown. The Christ sprung from its bosom, was 
instructed in its schools, was glorified through its 
imagination. The resurrection was its prophecy; 
the heaven to which he ascended was of its building 
and coloring ; the throne whereon he seated himself 
was of its construction; the Father at whose right 
hand he reigned was its own ancient deity. His 
very name, the name he continues to bear to this day, 
— Messiah — is the name whereby she loved to de- 
scribe her own ideal man. In the depth of his degra- 
dation, in the heat of his persecution, in the agony of 
his despair, the Jew could reflect that his relentless 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 39 

oppressor owed to him the very faith he was com- 
pelled to curse. The victim was the conqueror. The 
reflection may still have been bitter ; whatever sweet- 
ness it brought was flavored with vengeance, except in 
the greatest souls who loved their religion better than 
their fame. 



VIII. 

THE WESTERN CHURCH. 

Our story is not yet told. As regards the New 
Testament books, though the genius that produced 
them was Eastern, the judgment that brought them 
together in a single collection was Western. No list 
of the New Testament books pretending to carry 
weight was made until the year 360. For two cen- 
turies and a half there was no Christian bible. The 
canon, as it now stands, was fixed by Pope Innocent 
I., A. D. 405, by a special decree. Why precisely 
these books were selected from the mass of literature 
then in existence and use, is — except in two or three 
cases where the prevailing sentiment of the actual 
Church threw out a book like Enoch or kept in a 
book like the Apocalypse — still open to conjecture. 
In such a dilemma Schwegler's conjecture, that the 
irenical or reconciling books were retained, and the 
partisan writings dropped, is as plausible as any, 
perhaps more so. The Church of Rome had two 
patron saints — Peter and Paul; it claimed to be 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I4I 

founded by both Apostles, and, on this principle, 
adopted its canon of scripture. The New Testa- 
ment, by its arrangement, was, it is claimed, an ex- 
pression in literature of the Catholic claim. 

As regards the Christ idea, though formed in the 
East, the West gave it currency, made it the central 
feature of a vast religious system, crowned it and 
placed it on a throne. Had the creative thought of 
Judaism been confined to the East, our concern with 
it need have gone no further. But the thought was 
not confined to the East, even in the widest compre- 
hension of that term. The Jews were everywhere. 
The repeated disasters which befel their country gave 
fresh impulse to their creed. Their ideas spread as 
their state diminished ; and their ideas were so vital 
that they captured and engaged the floating specula- 
tions of the Gentile world whenever they were en- 
countered. In Alexandria, where Jews had been for 
two hundred and fifty or three hundred years, and 
whither they flocked by thousands after each fresh 
national disaster, the faith, instead of being extin- 
guished by the flood of speculation in that busy 
centre of the world's thought, revived, drew in co- 
pious supplies of blood from the Greek spirit, and 
entered on a new career. If it be true, as is declared 
in Smith's Dictionary of Geography, that when the 
city of Alexandria was founded (B. C. 332) it was laid 
out in three sections, one of which was assigned to 



142 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

the Jews, their political and social influence must 
have corresponded to their numbers. Prof. Huide- 
koper revives and reargues the belief, that travelled 
men of letters from Greece, preeminent among them, 
Plato, who visited Egypt, borrowed from the Jews 
the ideas which ennobled and beautified the Greek 
philosophy. The doctrines of the Stoics, Greek and 
Roman, bear, in Mr. Huidekoper's opinion, evident 
marks of Jewish origin. This is going, we think, 
beyond warrant of the facts. We may claim much 
less and still place very high the intellectual sway of 
this remarkable people. It may be confidently as- 
serted, that in portions of Asia Minor, Syria, and 
Northern Egypt, their faith had largely displaced the 
ancient superstitions. 

The splendid literature of the Apocrypha, Eccles- 
iasticus and Wisdom, the rich fund of speculation in 
the Talmud, the intellectual wealth of Philo, the 
Pauline and Johannean Gnosis, brilliantly attest their 
intellectual vigor. The Rev. Brooke Foss Walcott, 
in Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible," declares, that 
from the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, in the 
year 70, the power of Judaism " as a present living 
force, was stayed." But such a statement can be 
accepted only in a much qualified sense. The de- 
struction of Jerusalem put an end to the State more 
completely than the overthrow of any modern city 
could do ; for the holy city was the home of the 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 43 

national life in a peculiar sense ; it was the seat of 
the national worship in which the national life cen- 
tred. With the temple fell the institutions that 
rested on the temple. When the walls were thrown 
down and the grand buildings levelled, it was like 
erasing the marks of history, tearing up the roots of 
tradition and setting the seal of destiny on the 
nation's future. The territory was small ; the power 
of the great city was felt in every part of it, and the 
quenching of its light left the land in darkness. But 
the catastrophe which terminated the existence of 
the State, gave a new life to the religious idea and 
opened a new arena for its conquests. It greatly 
increased the number of Jews in the city of Rome, 
the imperial city of the West, the conquering metrop- 
olis ; raised the congregations already existing there 
to a position of considerable importance ; served to 
unite, by the sympathy of a common sorrow, parties 
that had been divided ; had the effect in some meas- 
ure to weaken antipathies, harmonize opinions and 
inflame zeal ; in a word, transferred to Italy the 
faith that, in outward form, had been crushed in 
Palestine. Thenceforth Judaism, which had been a 
blended worship and polity, ceased to be a polity, 
and became more intensely than ever, because more 
exclusively, a worship. 

The history of the settlement of Jews in Rome, 
is naturally obscure. Being mainly of the mercantile 



144 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

and trading class their presence there might have 
been expected early. They were restless, enterpris- 
ing, industrious, eager and skilful in barter ; and Rome 
attracted all such, being the business centre of the 
western world. Political affairs at home were never 
long favorable to peaceful pursuits, and were frequent- 
ly in such confusion that the transactions of ordinary 
existence were precarious. The numbers that were 
carried away to Babylon comprised it is probable the 
more eminent class. As many, if not more, found 
their way to other cities, and of these Rome received 
its share. The earliest mention brings them before 
us as already of consequence from their wealth and 
intelligence. Sixty years before the christian era, 
Cicero commended Lucius Valerius Flaccus, praetor 
of the district of Asia Minor, because he did not en- 
courage an exorbitant expenditure of money on the 
construction of the temple, by Jews, the exportation 
of whose wealth from Rome was felt as an evil. He 
states that under the directions of Flaccus, one hundred 
pounds weight of gold ($25,000) had been seized at 
Apamea, in Asia Minor ; twenty pounds at Laodicea. 
The Jews were rich. Their demonstrations of grief 
at the death of Julius Caesar, the conqueror of their 
conqueror, Pompey, and the enlightened friend of the 
people, argued by the number and loudness of the 
voices, the presence of a multitude. One may read 
in any book of Jewish history that Josephus reck- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 145 

oned at eight thousand the Jews who were present, 
when at the death of king Herod, his son Archelaus 
appeared before Augustus ; that the poor among 
them were numerous enough to procure from Augus- 
tus a decree authorizing them to receive their share 
of the bounty of corn on another day, when the 
day of genera] distribution fell on their Sabbath ; that 
one emperor expelled them as a dangerous element in 
the city; that another for the same reason laid spe- 
cial penalties and burdens on them ; that the aristo- 
cratic party was steadily hostile to them. Tacitus, 
their enemy, speaks of the deportation of four thou- 
sand young Israelites to Sardinia. Josephus makes 
the astounding, the fabulous statement that in the year 
66, the Jews in Rome required two hundred and fifty- 
six thousand lambs for their paschal commemoration.* 
Such a provision would imply a population of two 
million and a half at least. That the Jews were of 
some importance is attested by the comments made 
on them by Roman writers ; by Martial, who alludes 
to their customs in his epigrams ; by Ovid, who crit- 
icises their observance of the Sabbath as having the 
character of a debasing superstition and introduces a 
shirk who, having exhausted all pretexts, makes a 
pretext of respecting the Sabbath in order not to in- 
cur the ill will of the Jews ; by Persius, who remarks 

* Bellum Judaicum, VI I. 1 7. 
10 



I46 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

satirically on the Sabbath observances and the 
rite of circumcision ; by Plutarch, who minutely 
describes the Mosaic system of laws. Satire be- 
trays fear as well as dislike. The great writer dis- 
dains to caricature people who are inconspicuous. 
Juvenal was a great writer, and his envenomed raillery 
against the Jews has become familiar by quotation, 
it would seem, from his invectives, that Jewish ideas 
and practices had crept into public approval, and 
were exerting an influence on the education of Roman 
youth. He complains bitterly of parents who bring 
up their children to think more of the laws of Moses 
than of the laws of their country. — " Some there are, 
assigned by fortune to Sabbath fearing fathers, who 
adore nothing but the clouds and the genius of the 
sky ; who see no distinction between the swine's flesh 
as food and the flesh of man. Habitually despising 
the laws of Rome, they study, keep and revere the 
code of Judaea, a tradition given by Moses in a dark 
volume. The blame is with the father, with whom 
every seventh day is devoted to idleness, and with- 
drawn from the uses of life." Juvenal lived in the 
latter part of the first and the early part of the second 
century, about a generation after the destruction of 
Jerusalem. Admitting the genuineness of the pas- 
sage, and the ground of the criticism, neither of which 
is disputed, the influence of the Jews was by no 
means contemptible. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I47 

Milman conjectures that while the number of 
Jews in Rome was much increased, their respectabil- 
ity as well as their popularity were much diminished 
by the immense influx of the most destitute as well as 
of the most unruly of the race, who were swept into 
captivity by thousands after the fall of Jerusalem. 
This may be true. There is reason to believe that 
the importation of so great a number of strangers 
was attended by poverty, distress, and squalor, hor- 
rible to think of. It could not have been otherwise. 
That they should infest and infect whole districts of 
the city ; that they should pitch their vagabond tents 
on vacant plots of ground, and should change fair dis- 
tricts, gardens and groves into disreputable and foul 
precincts ; that they should resort to mean trades for 
support, peddling, trafficking in old clothes, rags, 
matches, broken glass, or should sink into mendi- 
cancy, is simply in the nature of things. But it is fair 
to suppose that the exiles from Jerusalem would bring 
with them the memory of their sufferings during the 
unexampled horrors of that tremendous war ; would 
bring with them also a fiercer sense of loyalty to the 
faith for which such agonies had been borne, such 
sacrifices had been made. That they held their 
religion dear, is certain. Their Sabbaths were ob- 
served, their laws revered, their synagogues fre- 
quented, their peculiarities of race cherished and 
perpetuated by tradition from father to son. There is 



I48 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

reason to think that they anticipated the Christians 
in their practice of burying their dead in the cata- 
combs, which bore a strong resemblance to the rocky 
caverns where in the fatherland, their ancestors were 
laid. The catacombs in the neighborhood of the 
Transtevere, the district where the Jews mostly lived, 
are plainly associated with them. The seven- 
branched candlestick appears on the wall, and the in- 
scriptions bear witness to the pious constancy of the 
race.* They made proselytes among the pagans 
weary of their decrepit and moribund faiths, and thus 
extended the religious ideas which they so tenaciously 
held. Among"themselves there was close association, 
partly from tradition and partly from race. Some 
semblance of their ancient institutions was kept up ; 
their general council ; their tribunal of laws. Cir- 
cumstances alone prevented them from maintaining 
their ancestral religion in its grandeur. Seneca, 
about the middle of the first century, represents Jew- 
ish usages as having pervaded all nations ; he is 
speaking of the Sabbath. Paul found thriving syna- 
gogues, wherever he went, and wrote to some that he 
could not visit, before the destruction of Jerusalem 
made the final dispersion. 

The Messianic hope was strong in these people ; 
all the stronger on account of their political degrada- 
tion. Born in sorrow, the anticipation grew keen in 
* See Milman's Jews, II. p. 461. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I49 

bitter hours. That Jehovah would abandon them, 
could not be believed. The thought would be atheism. 
The hope kept the eastern Jews in a perpetual state 
of insurrection. The cry, " lo here, lo there ! " was 
incessant. The last great insurrection, that of Bar- 
Cochab, revealed an astonishing frenzy of zeal. It 
was purely a Messianic uprising. Judaism had excited 
the fears of the Emperor Hadrian,* and induced him 
to inflict unusual severities on the people. He had 
forbidden circumcision, the rite of initiation into their 
church ; he had prohibited the observance of the 
Sabbath and the public reading of the law, thus dry- 
ing up the sources of the national faith. He had even 
threatened to abolish the historical rallying point of 
the religion by planting a Roman colony on the site 
of Jerusalem and building a shrine to Jupiter on the 
place where the temple had stood. Measures so 
violent and radical could hardly have been prompted 
by anything less alarming than the upspringing of 
that indomitable conviction which worked at the 
heart of the people. The effect of the violence was 
to stimulate that conviction to fury. The night of 
their despair was once more illumined by the star of 
the east. The banner of the Messiah was raised. 
Portents as of old were seen in the sky ; the clouds 
were watched for tjie glory that should appear. Bar- 
Cochab, the " son of the star," seemed to fill out the 
* See Huidekoper's "Judaism in Rome," p. 325-329. 



150 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

popular idea of the deliverer. Miracles were ascribed 
to him ; flames issued from his mouth. The vulgar 
imagination made haste to transform the audacious 
fanatic into a child of David. Multitudes flocked to 
his standard. "The whole Jewish race throughout 
the world," says Milman, "was in commotion; those 
who dared not betray their interest in the common 
cause openly, did so in secret, and perhaps some of 
the wealthy Jews in the remote provinces privately 
contributed from their resources." " Native Jews 
and strangers swelled his ranks. It is probable that 
many of the fugitives from the insurgents in Egypt 
and Cyrene had found their way to Palestine and lay 
hid in caves and fastnesses. No doubt some from the 
Mesopotamian provinces came to the aid of their 
brethren." " Those who had denied or disguised their 
circumcision, hastened to renew that distinguishing 
mark of their Israelitish descent, to entitle themselves 
to a share in the great redemption." The insurrec- 
tion gained head. The heights about Jerusalem were 
seized and occupied ; fortifications were erected ; 
caves were dug, and subterranean passages cut be- 
tween the garrisoned positions ; arms were collected ; 
nothing but the " host of angels " was needed to in- 
sure victory. The angels did not appear ; the Roman 
legions did. The carnage, during the three or four 
years of the war — for so long and possibly longer, the 
war lasted — was frightful. The Messiah, not proving 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I5I 

himself a conqueror, was held to have proved himself 
an impostor, the " son of a lie." The holy city was 
once more destroyed, this time completely. A new 
city, peopled by foreigners, arose on its site. The 
effect of the outbreak, which was felt far and wide, in 
time and space, was disastrous to Jewish influence in 
the empire. From this time Judaism lost its good 
name, and at the same time its hold on the cultivated 
mind of Europe. Fanaticism so wild and destructive 
was entitled to no respect. 

The Christians, of course, took no part in the great 
rising, and had no interest in it. It was their faith 
that the Messiah had already come ; and however con- 
fident their expectation of his reappearance to judge 
the nations and redeem his elect, time had so far 
sobered the hopes of even the rudest among them, that 
they no longer looked for a man of war, no longer 
were attracted by banners in the hands of ruffians or 
trumpet blasts blown by human lips. The feeling was 
gaining ground, if it was not quite confirmed, that in- 
stead of waiting for the Christ to come to them, they 
were to go to him in his heaven. Hence, Jews, 
though they might be in the essentials of their reli- 
gious faith, they were wholly alienated from those of 
their race who looked for a cosmical or political de- 
monstration. That this want of sympathy and failure 
to participate, widened the breach between them and 



152 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

the Jews who still expected a temporal deliverer, there 
can be little question ; that in times of great excite- 
ment, the Christian Jews were exposed to scoffing 
and persecution is equally undeniable. Bar-Cochab 
treated them with extreme cruelty. It is even prob- 
able that in Rome and the provinces of the empire a 
settled hatred of the Christians animated Jews of the 
average stamp, and found expression in the usual 
forms of popular malignity. It is easy to believe that 
Jews in Rome, possessing influence in high quarters, 
thrust Christians between themselves and persecution. 
This, indeed, is extremely probable.* But that, in or- 
dinary times, an active animosity prevailed on the 
part of the Jews of the old school against Jews of the 
new school, is not clearly proved. The latter were 
orthodox, conservative Jews, loyal to the national faith 
in- every respect save one, namely, their persuasion 
that the Christ was no longer to be looked for, having 
already appeared. To those Jews, who had abandon- 
ed the belief that he would appear, or who had allowed 
that belief to sink into the background of their minds, 
the belief of the Christians would occasion no bitter- 
ness. It is still a common impression that the 
persecution recorded in the book of " The Acts of 
the Apostles," to which Stephanos, the Greek convert, 
fell a victim, was directed by Jews against Christians. 

* See "Judaism in Rome," p. 245. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I53 

But it has been made to appear more than probable, 
— admitting the historical truth of the narrative — 
that the assault was made by the Judaizing upon the 
anti-Judaizing Christians ; the Jews who were not 
Christians at all, taking no part in it. The reasoning 
upon which this conclusion is based, will be found in 
Zeller's book on the " Acts," an exhaustive treatise 
which must be studied by anybody who would under- 
stand that curious composition. The main positions 
may be apprehended by the intelligent reader on 
carefully perusing the story as written, and noting the 
conspicuous fact, that the quarrel is between radicals 
and conservatives ; between the advocates of a broad 
policy, comprehending Greeks and Romans on the 
same terms with Jews, and the champions of a re- 
stricted policy, confining the benefits of the Messiah's 
advent to the true Israelites. 

The destruction of Jerusalem was one of the 
causes that may have operated to close this gulf. By 
breaking up the head-quarters of the Christian con- 
servatism, and dispersing the lingerers there among 
the inhabitants of Gentile cities, it weakened their 
ties, widened their experience, softened their prejudi- 
ces, and prepared them to accept the larger interpre- 
tation of their faith. The writings of the New Tes- 
tament, all of them produced after the destruction of 
Jerusalem, some of them fifty or sixty years after, 
none of them less than ten or fifteen years, bear 



154 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. ■ 

traces of this enlargement. The Jewish christians 
living in Greek and Roman Cities could hardly avoid 
the temptations to adopt that view of their faith 
which commended it to the communities whereof they 
were a part, and this was the view presented by Paul 
and his school, the intellectual, or, as some prefer to 
call it, the " spiritual " view. According to this view, 
also, the new religion was grafted on the old, Judaism 
was the foundation ; the root from which sprung the 
branches, however widely spreading. Paul, as has 
been remarked, addressed himself invariably to Jews, 
in the first instance, and turned to the Gentiles only 
when the Jews rejected him. The essential beliefs 
of the religious Jew he retained, never exchanging 
them for the beliefs of Paganism, or qualifying them 
with the speculations of heathen philosophy. He 
labored in the interest of the faith of Israel, broadly 
interpreted, nor, in respect of his fundamental con- 
ceptions, did he ever wander far from the religion of 
his fathers. The spiritual distance between the 
school he founded, and the school that in his life 
time he opposed, was not so wide that it might not 
in course of time, be diminished, until at length it 
disappeared entirely. Parties holding the same car- 
dinal belief, will not forever be separated by inciden- 
tal barriers, especially when, as was the case with the 
destruction of Jerusalem, providence moves the chief 
barriers away. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 55 

Other inducements to a good understanding 
between the two parties of Christian Jews were at 
work. Heresies of all sorts were springing up with- 
in the churches, which could be suppressed only by 
the moral power of a common persuasion in the 
minds of the chief bodies. Questions were raised 
which neither branch of the christian community 
could satisfactorily answer ; controversies arose, 
demanding something like an ecclesiastical authority 
to adjust. Unless the new religion was to split into 
petty sections and be pulverized to nothingness, the 
restoration of old breaches was an absolute neces- 
sity. The danger was of too sudden and artifi- 
cial a compromise between the main divisions, re- 
sulting in a compact organization that might arrest 
the movements of the spirit of liberty. The 
church did eventually obtain supremacy in dogma 
and rite, through the imperative demand for 
unity that was urgently pressed early in the second 
century. 

Judaism contained in its bosom two elements, one 
stationary, the other progressive ; one close, the 
other expansive ; one centralizing in Judaea and 
waiting till it should attract the outer world to it, 
the other forth reaching beyond Palestine, and seek- 
ing to commend the faith of Israel to those who 
knew it not. These two elements coexisted from 
early times, and caused perpetual ferment by their 



I56 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

struggles to overmaster each other. The priest 
stood for the one principle, the narrower, the fixed, 
the instituted ; the prophet stood for the other, the 
intellectual, the expansive, the progressive. The 
priest stayed at home to administer the ordinances ; 
the prophet journeyed about, to spread the salva- 
tion. The priest was a fixture, the prophet was a 
missionary. 

The two divisions of the earliest Christian com- 
munity represented these counter tendencies. The 
school of Peter, James, and John, the hierarchial, 
conservative school, maintained the attitude of ex- 
pectation. They waited and prayed, exacted rigid 
compliance with ordinances ; clung to their associa- 
tions with places and seasons ; were tenacious of 
holy usages ; required punctuality and accuracy of 
posturing, were strict in conformity with legal pres- 
criptions, made a point of circumcision, or other rites 
of initiation into the true church. The school of Paul 
and Apollos took up the principle of universality, 
dispensed with whatever hampered their movements 
and impeded their action, and, taking essential ideas 
only, making themselves " all things to all men, if 
peradventure, they might win some," preached the 
message freely, to as many as would hear. The two 
principles, however discordant in operation, demand- 
ed each other. They could not long exist apart ; the 
unity and the universality were mutually complement- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 57 

ary. Unity alone, would bring isolation, solitariness, 
and ultimate death from diminution. Universality 
alone would lead to dissipation, attenuation, and dis- 
appearance. It was therefore not long before the 
extremes drew together and met. 

Lecky, the historian of European morals, assigns 
as a reason why the Jews in Rome were less vehe- 
mently persecuted than the Christians, that " the 
Jewish religion was essentially conservative and 
unexpansive. The Christians, on the other hand, 
were ardent missionaries." Would it not be more 
exact to say that the Jews of one school were essen- 
tially conservative and unexpansive ; that the Jews of 
another school were ardent missionaries ? That the 
one school should be persecuted/ while the other was 
left in peace, was perfectly natural, especially in com- 
munities where their essential identity was not 
understood. There is no necessity for supposing 
that the two faiths were actually distinguished 
because one attracted attention and provoked attack, 
while the other did nothing of the kind. Not history 
only, but common observation furnishes abundant 
examples of faiths fundamentally the same, meeting 
very different fortunes, according to the attitude 
which circumstances compelled them to assume. 
The Christians might have presented the aggressive 
front of Judaism, as Paul did, and still not have 
forfeited their claim to be true children of Israel. 



I58 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

There is, in fact, no doubt that discerning persons 
perceived the substantial identity of the two religions. 
It is conceded on all sides, by Jewish and by Chris- 
tian writers, — Milman and Salvador, Jost and Meri- 
vale, corroborating one another, — that Jews were 
taken for Christians and Christians for Jews. They 
were subjected to the same criticism ; they were ex- 
posed to the same contumely. Indeed it may be 
questioned whether the early persecutions that were 
inflicted on the Christians were not really directed 
against the Jews, whose reputation for restlessness 
and fanaticism, for stiffness and intolerance, was 
established in the minds of all classes of society. The 
Jews were a mark for persecution before there was a 
Christian in Rome, before the Christian era began. 
They were persecuted on precisely the same pretexts 
that were used in the case of the Christians. They 
had a recognized locality, standing and character. 
They were many in number and considerable in in- 
fluence. The lower orders disliked their austerity ; 
the higher orders dreaded their organization ; philoso- 
phers despised them as superstitious ; politicians 
hated them as intractable ; emperors used them when 
they wished to divert angry comment from their own 
acts. They were " fair game " for imperial pursuit. 
A raid on the Jews was popular. It is possible, to 
say the least, that the Christians would have passed 
unmolested but for their association with the Israel- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 59 

ites. This is no novel insinuation ; Milman hinted at 
it more than a quarter of a century ago, in his " His- 
tory of Christianity." " When the public peace was 
disturbed by the dissensions among the Jewish popu- 
lation of Rome, the summary sentence of Claudius 
visited both Jews and Christians with the same in- 
different severity. So the Neronian persecution was 
an accident arising out of the fire at Rome ; no part 
of a systematic plan for the suppression of foreign 
religions. It might have fallen on any other sect or 
body of men who might have been designated as vic- 
tims to appease the popular resentment. Accus- 
tomed to the separate worship of the Jews, to the 
many, Christianity appeared at first only as a modifica- 
tion of that belief."* The same conjecture is more 
boldly ventured in the History of Latin Christianity. 
"What caprice of cruelty directed the attention of 
Nero to the Christians, and made him suppose them 
victims important enough to glut the popular indigna- 
tion at the burning of Rome, it is impossible to deter- 
mine. The cause and extent of the Domitian perse- 
cution is equally obscure. The son of Vespasian was 
not likely to be merciful to any connected with the 
fanatic Jews." " At the commencement of the second 
century, under Trajan, persecution against the Chris- 
tians is raging in the East. That, however, (I feel 

* History of Christianity, 11; p. 8. 



l6o THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

increased confidence in the opinion), was a local, or 
rather Asiatic persecution, arising out of the vigilant 
and not groundless apprehension of the sullen and 
brooding preparation for insurrection among the 
whole Jewish race (with whom Roman terror and 
hatred still confounded the Christians), which broke 
out in the bloody massacres of Cyrene and Cyprus, 
and in the final rebellion, during the reign of Hadrian, 
under Bar-Cochab." * If the Christians made them- 
selves particularly obnoxious, they did so by their 
zeal for beliefs which they shared with the Jews and 
derived from them ; beliefs in the personality of God, 
the immediateness of Providence, the law of moral 
retribution, and the immortal destinies of the human 
soul. Their belief in the ascended and reigning 
Christ gave point to their zeal ; but the Jews, too, 
clung to their hope of the Christ, and through the 
vitality of their hope were known. 

The importance ascribed to Christianity as a 
special moral force working in the constitution of the 
heathen world, is, by recent admission, acknowledged 
to have been much exaggerated. The chapter on 
"The state of the world toward the middle of the first 
century " in Renan's "Apostles," sums up with singu- 
lar calmness, clearness and easy strength, the in- 
fluences that were slowly transforming the social con- 

* Vol. I. ; p. 528. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. l6l 

dition of the empire ; the nobler ideas, the purer 
morals, the amenities and humanities that were steal- 
ing in to temper the violence, mitigate the ferocity, 
soften the hardness and uplift the grossness of the 
western world. Samuel Johnson's little essay on 
"The Worship of Jesus" is a subtle glance into the 
same facts, tracing the efficacy of powers that co- 
operated in producing the atmospheric change which 
was as summer succeeding winter over the civilized 
earth. Mr. Lecky, with broader touch, but accurately 
and conscientiously, paints a noble picture on the 
same subject. But other artists, of a different school, 
make the same representation. Merivale, lecturing 
in 1864, on the Boyle foundation, in the Chapel 
Royal, at Whitehall, on the " Conversion of the 
Roman Empire," in the interest of the christian 
Church, says, " the influence of Grecian conquest 
was eminently soothing and civilizing ; it diffused ideas 
of humanity and moral culture, while the conquerors 
themselves imbibed on their side the highest of moral 
lessons, lessons of liberality, of toleration, of sympathy 
with all God's human creation." " Plutarch, in a few 
rapid touches, enforced by a vivid illustration which 
we may pass over, gives the picture of the new hu- 
mane polity, the new idea of human society flashed 
upon the imagination of mankind by the establish- 
ment of the Macedonian Empire. Such, at least, it 
appeared to the mind of a writer five centuries later ; 



1 62 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

but there are traces preserved, even in the wrecks of 
ancient civilization, of the moral effect which it 
actually produced on the feelings of society, much 
more nearly contemporaneous. The conqueror, in- 
deed, perished early, but not prematurely. The great 
empire was split into fragments, but each long pre- 
served a sense of the unity from which it was broken 
off. All were leavened more or less with a common 
idea of civilization, and recognized man as one being 
in various stages of development, to be trained under 
one guidance and elevated to one spiritual level. In 
the two great kingdoms of Egypt and Syria, which 
sprang out of the Macedonian, — in the two great 
cities of Alexandria and Antioch, to which the true 
religion owes so deep a debt, — the unity of the human 
race was practically asserted and maintained." "'After 
three centuries of national amalgamation, the result 
of a widespread political revolution, after the diffusion 
of Grecian ideas among every people, from the Ionian 
to the Caspian or the Red Sea, and the reception in 
return, of manifold ideas, and in religious matters of 
much higher ideas, from the Persian, the Indian, the 
Egyptian and the Jew, the people even of Athens, 
the very centre and eye of Greece, were prepared to 
admit the cardinal doctrine of Paul's preaching." 

The same writer cordially admits the moral grand- 
eur and the moral power of the philosophers whose 
teaching had, for several generations, been leavening 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 163 

the thought and ennobling the humanity of the 
Roman world. " The philosophy of the Stoics, the 
highest and holiest moral theory at the time of our 
Lord's coming, — the theory which most worthily con- 
tended against the merely political religion of the day, 
the theory which opposed the purest ideas and the 
loftiest aims to the grovelling principles of a narrow 
and selfish expediency on which the frame of the 
heathen ritual rested — was the direct creation of the 
sense of unity and equality disseminated among the 
choicer spirits of heathen society by the results of 
the Macedonian conquest. But for that conquest it 
could hardly have existed at all. It was the phi- 
losophy of Plato, sublimed and harmonized by the 
political circumstances of the times. It was what 
Plato would have imagined, had he been a subject of 
Alexander." 

" It taught, nominally at least, the equality of all 
God's children — of Greek and barbarian, of bond and 
free. It renounced the exclusive ideas of the com- 
monwealth on which Plato had made shipwreck of his 
consistency. It declared that to the wise man all the 
world is his country. It was thoroughly comprehen- 
sive and cosmopolitan. Instead of a political union 
it preached the moral union of all good men, — a city 
of true philosophers, a community of religious senti- 
ment, a communion of saints, to be developed partly 
here below, but more consummately in the future 



164 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

state of a glorified hereafter. It aspired, at least, to 
the doctrine of an immortal city of the soul, a provi- 
dence under which that immortality was to be gained, 
a reward for the good, possibly, but even more 
dubiously, a punishment of the wicked." 

Merivale, it will be understood, writing in the in- 
terest of Christianity, makes note of the limitations of 
the Stoic Philosophy, calls it vague, unsatisfactory and 
aristocratic, the " peculiarity of a select class of 
minds ; " and so it was, to a degree ; but that it had a 
mighty influence throughout the intellectual world, as 
much as any system of belief could have, must be 
confessed. So far as ideas went, it comprehended 
the wisest and best there were. As respected the 
authority by which the ideas were recommended and 
guaranteed, it was the authority of the intellectual 
lights of the world. To say that the truths were lim- 
ited, is to say what may be said of every intellectual 
system under the sun, including the beliefs of chris- 
tian apostles which the christian Church has out- 
grown. To say that they were not final, is to say 
what will be affirmed of every intellectual system till 
the end of time. There the beliefs were, stated, 
urged, preached with earnestness by men of live 
minds, fully awake to the needs of the society they 
adorned, thinking and writing, not for their own en- 
tertainment, but for the improvement of mankind. 
Their books were not read by the ' multitude, the 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 165 

multitude could not read : scarcely can they read now. 
But the men influenced the directors of opinion, the 
makers of laws, the builders of institutions, the 
wealthy, the instructed, the high in place. 

Nor must it be forgotten that these ideas of phi- 
losophy did not remain cold speculations. They bore 
characteristic fruits in humanity of every kind. The 
brotherhood was not a sentiment, it was a principle of 
wide beneficence. The charities of this gospel at- 
tested the presence of a warm heart in the metropolis 
of the heathen world. Of this there can no longer 
be any doubt. Works like that of Denis' " Histoire 
des Theories et des Idees Morales dans l'Antiquite," 
reveal a condition of becoming in the Roman Empire 
that might dispel the fears of the most skeptical in 
regard to the continuous moral progress of the race. 
The immense popular distributions of corn which 
from being occasional had become habitual in Rome, 
were as a rule prompted by no humane feeling, were 
not designed to mitigate suffering or express compas- 
sion. They were in the main, devices for gaining 
popularity. Caius Gracchus, who, more than a cen- 
tury before Christ, carried a law making compulsory 
the sale of corn to the poor at a nominal price, was 
perhaps actuated by a worthier motive ; but it is 
doubtful whether his successors were. Cato of Utica 
was not. Clodius Pulcher was not. The emperors 
were obliged to purchase popularity by these enor- 



l66 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

mous bribes. It is said that Augustus caused the 
monthly distribution to be made to two hundred 
thousand people. Half a million claimed the bounty 
under the Antonines. The addition of a ration of 
oil to the corn; the substitution of bread for the corn; 
the supplementing of this by an allowance of pork ; a 
subsequent supply of the article of salt to the poor on 
similarly easy terms ; the distribution of portions of 
land ; the imperial legacies, donations, gratuities, 
mentioned as bestowed on occasion ; the public baths 
provided and thrown open to all at a trifling expense, 
were also means of winning or retaining the good will 
of a fickle and turbulent populace. They neither 
expressed a humane sentiment nor produced a humane 
result. They were suggested by ambition, no 
better sometimes than that of the demagogue, and 
they begot idleness, and demoralization. But some 
part of the beneficence must have sprung from a more 
generous motive. The interest manifested by several 
emperors in public education, and the appropriation 
made for the maintenance of the children of the poor, 
five thousand of whom are said, by Pliny, to have been 
supported by the government, under Trajan, who 
presume never heard of Christianity, — cannot fairly 
be ascribed to political motives. The private 
charities of the younger Pliny, who devoted a small 
patrimony to the maintenance of poor children in 
Como, his native place ; of Coelia Macrina, who founded 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. l6/ 

a charity for one hundred at Terracina ; Hadrian's, 
bounties to poor women ; Antonine's loans of money 
to the poor at reduced rates of interest ; the institu- 
tions dedicated to the support of girls by Antoninus 
and Marcus Aurelius ; the private infirmaries for 
slaves ; the military hospitals, certainly owed their 
existence to a humane feeling. Pliny is responsible 
for the statement that both in Greece and Rome the 
poor had mutual insurance societies which provided 
for their sick and infirm members. Tacitus expa- 
tiates on the generosity of the rich, who, on occa- 
sion of a catastrophe near Rome, threw open their 
houses and taxed their resources to relieve the suf- 
fering.* 

Such acts attest a genuine kindness. The pro- 
tests of the best citizens against the bloody gladiatorial 
shows, — a protest so eager and persistent that the 
trade of the gladiator was seriously injured — must 
have been in the highest degree unpopular, for the 
populace found in these shows their favorite amuse- 
ment. The remonstrances of philanthropic men 
against the barbarities of the penal code ; the call for 
the abolishment of the death penalty ; the pity for the 
woes of neglected children ; the indignation at the 
crime of infanticide ; the earnest interest taken in the 

* For references, see Lecky's "European Morals," II., p. 
79-81. 



1 68 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

problems of prostitution and the most revolting 
aspects of pauperism were such as might have pro- 
ceeded from nineteenth century people.* Stronger 
words were never spoken by American abolitionists 
than were uttered by pagan lips against the slavery 
that was pulling down the Roman State. 

That beneficence in the Roman Empire during 
the latter half of the first century and the first half of 
the second was fitful, formal, limited, and unim- 
passioned, as compared with the charities of Chris- 
tians in their communities, need not be said ; of course 
it was. The Christians succeeded to the legacies 
of kindness left by the pagans ; they were compar- 
atively few in number, and were bound to one another 
by peculiar ties ; they were themselves of the great 
family of the poor ; they were obliged to help one 
another in the only way they could, by personal effort 
and sacrifice. Their traditions, too, of beneficence 
were oriental. The difference in spirit between 
Roman and Christian charity cannot be fairly des- 
cribed as a difference between heathen charity and 
christian; it is more just to call it a difference 
between Eastern charity and Western. The Orient- 
als, including the Jews, made beneficence in its 
various forms, an individual duty. Kindness to the 
sick, the unfortunate, the poor, compassion with the 
sorrowful, almsgiving to the destitute, hospitality to 

*See Denis, II., p. 55-218. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I69 

the stranger, are virtues characteristic of all eastern 
people. The New Testament chiefly echoes the 
sentiment of the Old on this matter, and the Old 
Testament chimes in with the voices of eastern 
teachers. In the West, government undertook 
responsibilities which in oriental lands, were assumed 
by individuals ; people were to a much greater degree 
massed in orders and classes ; the distance was wider 
between the governors and the governed, and con- 
siderations of state more gravely affected the actions 
which elsewhere seemed to concern only the private 
conscience and heart. The question of advantage 
between these two systems is still an open one. In 
every generation there have been some, christians too, 
who preferred the western method to the eastern, 
as being less costly, and more methodical ; the debate 
on the relative advantages and disadvantages of the 
personal and the impersonal methods still goes on in 
modern communities ; neither system prevails ex- 
clusively in any christian land ; the Latin races still, 
as a rule, prefer the Roman way, France for example, 
where charity is a matter of public rather than of 
private concern. 

The mischiefs of the oriental method were appar- 
ent before Christianity appeared, and its zealous 
adoption of them early awakened misgivings. The 
indiscriminate almsgiving, the elevation of poverty to 
the rank of a privilege, the glorification of self- 



170 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

impoverishment, the acceptance of feeling as a divine 
monitor, and of emotion as a heavenly instinct, the 
substitution of the worship of the heart for defer- 
ence to reason, the loose compassion, the practical 
and professed communism — for some of the fathers 
maintained that all property was based on usurpation, 
that all men had a common right in the earth, and 
that none was entitled to hold wealth except as a 
trust for others — soon disclosed disastrous results. 
Against the evils that are fairly chargeable upon 
the wholesale measures of the imperial bounty, must 
be offset the equally grave, and in some respects, not 
dissimilar evils incident to the unprincipled practice 
of loving kindness on the part of the bishops and 
their flocks, the increase of the dependent, the en- 
couragement of pauperism, the waste of wealth, the 
worse waste of humanity. National philanthrophy in 
London and New York finds no more serious obstacle 
to its advance than the benevolence that is incul- 
cated in the name of Christ, and by authority of the 
New Testament. It is the battle of science against 
sentiment. 

The increased devoutness that showed itself in the 
empire, about the beginning of the second century, 
the pious passion that broke out, is attributable to 
natural causes, that have been mentioned by every 
author who has written on the subject. It is familiar 
knowledge that the decay of institutions, the disintegra- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. lfl 

tion of social bonds, the general decline of positive 
religious faith, a decline partly due, possibly, to the 
tolerance which placed all faiths side by side, was 
followed, or we might say accompanied by a longing 
after divine things that was wild in the fervor of its 
impulse. The complacent reign of skepticism was 
succeeded by a volcanic outbreak of superstition. 
What has been called " a storm of supernaturalism " 
burst forth, with the usual accompaniments of frenzy, 
and took possession of all classes. Only general 
causes of this can be assigned. That it was due to 
any special influence cannot be alleged. That it was 
due to any "supernatural " interposition of heaven, is 
an unnecessary supposition. The cursory reader of 
the history of the empire, as written by intelligent 
modern scholars, of whatever school, sees plainly 
enough the pass that things had come to and how 
they came to it. Christianity came in on the wave of 
this movement, felt its force, struck into its channel, 
was borne aloft on its bosom. It is customary to 
speak of all this spiritual ferment as a preparation for 
Christianity ; it was such a preparation as left Chris- 
tianity little of a peculiar kind to do. What new 
element it introduced, it would be hard to say now, 
however easy it seemed half a century ago. The 
desert land of heathenism has been explored, and the 
result is a discovery of fertile plains instead of barren- 
ness. The distinction between the ante- Christian and 



172 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

the post-christian eras is, if not obliterated, yet so far 
effaced, that the transition from one to the other is 
natural and facile. 

The longing for spiritual satisfaction that stirred 
in the heart of the empire, found neither its source 
nor its gratification exclusively in the religion that 
afterwards became the professed faith of Rome. It 
slaked its thirst at older fountains, Such longings 
will, at need, open fountains of living water for their 
own supply. Passing through the valley of Baca 
they create a well, the streams whereof fill the pools. 
The smitten rock pours out its torrents. The hungry 
soul creates its harvest as it goes along, feeding itself 
by the way with food that seems to fall miraculously 
from the sky. It makes a religion if there be none at 
hand. A new heaven peopled with angels ; a new 
earth full of providences come into being at its call. 
But in this emergency the religion was extant in the 
world, already venerable, already proved. It was the 
religion of Israel, with all that was necessary to 
attract attention and command reverence ; a holy 
God, an immediate providence, a solemn history, a 
glorious prophecy, an inspiring hope, traditions, in- 
stitutions, a temple, a priesthood, sacrifices, a code of 
laws, ceremonial and moral, poetry, learning, music, 
mystery, stately forms of men and women, judges, 
kings, heroes, martyrs, saints, a superb literature, 
legends of virtue, festivals of joy, visions of resurrec- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 73 

tion and judgment, precepts of righteousness, promises 
of peace, songs of victory and of sorrow, dreams of a 
heavenly kingdom to be won by obedience to divine 
law, tender lessons of charity, stern lessons of denial, 
fascinating attractions and yet more fascinating fears, 
gentle persuasions and awful menaces, calculated to 
lay hold on every mood, to thrill and to satisfy every 
human emotion. The religion of Israel lacked little 
but outward prestige of power and wealth to make 
it precisely what the time required ; and in times of 
real earnestness the prestige of power and wealth is 
readily dispensed with. The unfashionable faith is 
the very one to attract worldly people on their first 
awakening to spiritual sensibility. The show of world- 
liness is then, to the worldly, particularly offensive. 
"The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride 
of life," delight in abasing themselves before rags and 
filth, wishing to reach the opposite extreme. The 
graces of the religious character, humility, meekness, 
self-accusation, contrition, find in associations with 
the coarse, the hard, the repulsive, their fittest ex- 
pression. Hence it was that Judaism, heretofore the 
faith of the despised, became the faith of the despisers. 
Its very dogmatism, its proud exclusiveness and 
intolerance, were in its favor. Its haughty reserve 
assisted it ; its superb disdain of other faiths, its 
boast of antiquity, its claim to a monopoly of the 
future of the race, exerted a weird spell over the dazed 



174 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

and decrepit minds of the superstitious, high and low. 
Its lofty belief in miracle and sign, fairly constrained 
the skeptical to bow the head. 

The interest felt in Judaism, and its influence on 
society in its high places, have already been alluded 
to, and need not be further insisted on. The testi- 
mony of Juvenal — the testimony of sarcasm and com- 
plaint — is enough to establish the fact that a curi 
osity amounting to infatuation had taken possession 
especially of the women of Rome. 

If it be asked why Judaism, then, was not made 
the religion of the empire, instead of Christianity, 
which it hated with all the fervor of close relation- 
ship, the answer is at hand : Judaism laid no em- 
phasis 011 its cosmopolitan feat?n r es, and discouraged 
belief in the historical fulfilment of its own prophecy. 
The charge that it was a national religion, the religion 
of a race, it was at no pains to repel ; on the con- 
trary, it seems to have exaggerated this claim to dis- 
tinction, standing on its dignity, despising the arts of 
propagandism and demanding the submission of other 
creeds. This attitude alone might have recommended 
the religion in some quarters, and would not have se- 
riously embarrassed it in any, supposing it to have been 
loftily and worthily sustained. A graver cause of its 
unpopularity was its failure to lay stress on its Mes- 
sianic idea. It would abate nothing of its mono- 
theistic grandeur. Its God was the everlasting, the 



THE CRADLE OE THE CHRIST. 1 75 

infinite, the formless, the invisible. The command 
to make of Him no image whatever, either animal or 
human, to associate Him with neither place nor time, 
was obeyed to the letter. Among a people extremely 
sensitive to grace of form and beauty of color, the 
Jews had no art ; they set up no statue ; they painted 
no picture ; they allowed no emblem that could be 
worshipped. Their Holy Spirit was an influence ; their 
Messiah was a distant hope ; their kingdom of heaven 
was a dream. The Christians of both schools — the 
conservative and the liberal — thrust into the fore- 
ground the conceptions which their co-religionists 
kept in the shadow of anticipation. In their belief, 
prophecy was fulfilled. The Messiah had come ; he 
had taken on human shape ; he had passed through 
an earthly career; he had ascended in visible form 
to the skies ; he sat there at the right hand of the 
Majesty on high ; he was active in his care for his 
own, suffering and sorrowing on earth ; he sent the 
Holy Spirit, the comforter and guide to his friends 
in their affliction ; he was the immediate God ; he 
heard and answered prayer ; he pardoned sin ; he 
opened the gates of heaven to believers. They did 
not scruple to make images of him ; to represent 
him in emblems ; to eke out their own rude art by 
adopting the art which the heathen had ceased to 
venerate, and, where they could, re-dedicating statues 
of Apollo and Jupiter to their Christ. They were 



iy6 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

eager to have legendary portraits accepted as faithful 
likenesses of their Lord. Fables were invented, like 
that of Veronica's napkin, to give currency to certain 
heads as the Christ's own image of himself miracu- 
lously imprinted on a cloth. They claimed to have 
seen him, in moments of ecstasy; they ascribed to his 
prompting, states of feeling, purposes and courses of 
action. By every means they created and deepened 
the impression that the Divinity they worshipped was 
a real God, and no intellectual abstraction. 

This was the very thing the pagan world wanted — 
a personal Deity, Providence, Saviour. Through their 
acquiescence in this demand, other oriental faiths, 
without a tithe of Israel's grandeur — mythological, 
superstitious, sensual even — gained a popularity that 
Judaism could not attain. The strange Egyptian 
divinities drew many to their shrines. Three em- 
perors — Commodus, Caracalla and Heliogabalus — 
are said to have been devoted to the mysteries of 
Isis and Serapis. Juvenal describes Roman women as 
breaking the ice on the frozen Tiber, at the dawn of. 
day, and plunging thrice into the stream of purification ; 
as painfully dragging themselves on bleeding knees 
around the field of Tarquin ; as projecting pilgrimages 
to Egypt, expeditions in search of the holy water re- 
quired at the shrine of the goddess. The Persian 
Mithras had his thronsrs of adoring devotees. The 
prominence given at this period to the statues of 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I JJ 

Mithras, the existence of temples to Isis and Serapis, 
attest the power that these divinities exerted over the 
imagination of the Italian people. These people de- 
manded deities human in shape and attributes. So 
clamorous were they for images, that they would con- 
secrate them at any cost of decency. The emperor 
Augustus was deified. His statue on the public 
square, his insignia on a banner, his name on a 
shield excited veneration. The noblest religion with- 
out a human centre was less prized than the ignoblest 
with one, and the faith of Israel was compelled to 
yield to the degrading fascinations of the Bona Dea. 

The Christian Jews, with their Messiah, took the 
popular desire at its best, and satisfied it. The image 
they presented, though to the mind's eye only, was 
so much more gracious than the loveliest that eastern 
or western art furnished that its acceptance was 
assured. Early in the fourth century the impression 
made was too deep to be overlooked by the controllers 
of public opinion. The politic Constantine, seeking 
a spiritual ally, and finding none among the faiths 
of his own land, called in the Nazarene to aid him in 
establishing an empire over the souls of his subjects. 
Christ was king in fact before he was formally crowned. 

But the true history of his reign began with the 
ceremony of his coronation ; the history of Chris- 
tianity as a distinct religion commences with the 
so-called " conversion " of Constantine. Latin Chris- 

12 



I78 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

tianity was the first, some think the consummate, in 
fact the only, Christianity. The adoption of the re- 
ligion as the State Church, was for it a new creation. 
From that moment, began the efforts to complete its 
dogmatical system by a succession of councils, the 
first one, that of Nicasa, being held A. D. 325, 
about twelve years after the imperial " conversion ;" 
that of Sardica — ecclesiastically of great importance 
— in 347, and the councils of Aries and of Milan in 

352. 

Once seated on a throne of power, a crown on his 
head, a sceptre in his hand, clothed with authority, 
protected by armies, girded with law, instigator of 
policies, chief of ceremonies, the Christ in heaven 
rapidly completed the structure whereof Constantine 
had placed the corner-stone. The materials he gath- 
ered right and left, wherever they were to be found. 
Right of supremacy made them his. Judaism gave 
temple, and synagogue, the organization of its priest- 
hood, the distinction between priest and layman, its 
worship, music, scripture, litany, sentiment and usage 
of prayer, its ascetic spirit, its doctrines of resurrec- 
tion and judgment, its code of righteousness, its altar 
forms, its history, and its prophecy. Paganism was laid 
under contribution for its military spirit. The " sta- 
tions " of the Passion, were copied from army usage, 
so were its practical temper, its regard for precedent 
law and policy, its rules of obedience, its distrust of 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 79 

speculation, its horror of schism, its passion for unity, 
its skill in diplomacy, its solid respect for authority. 
Quietly, without leave asked, or apology offered, the 
insignia of the old faiths were transferred to the new. 
The title of Sovereign Pontifex, or bridgemaker— given 
originally to the chief of the guild of mechanics, pass- 
ed along from the period of the earliest kings through 
persons of consular dignity, and finally bestowed on 
the Roman emperors ; a title given at first, in com- 
memoration of the pons yanicularis, which joined the 
city to the highest of the surrounding hills — was con- 
ferred on the bishops or popes whose office it was to 
bridge over the gulf between the earth and the celes- 
tial mountains. The statues of Jupiter, Apollo, Mer- 
cury, Orpheus, did duty for the Christ. The Thames 
river god officiates at the baptism of Jesus in the 
Jordan. Peter holds the keys of Janus. Moses wears 
the horns of Jove. Ceres, Cybele, Demeter, assume 
new names as " Queen of Heaven," " Star of the Sea," 
" Maria Illuminatrix ;" Dionysius is St. Denis ; Cosmos 
is St. Cosmo ; Pluto and Proserpine resign their seats 
in the hall of final judgment, to the Christ and his 
mother. The Parcae depute one of their number, 
Lachesis, the disposer of lots, to set the stamp of 
destiny upon the deaths of Christian believers. The 
aura placida of the poets, the gentle breeze, is person- 
ified as Aura and Placida. The perpctuafelicitas of the 
devotee becomes a lovely presence in the forms of St. 



l80 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

Perpetua and St. Felicitas, guardian angels of the pious 
soul. No relic of Paganism was permitted to remain 
in its casket. The depositories were all ransacked. 
The shadowy hands of Egyptian priests placed the 
urn of holy water at the porch of the basilica, which 
stood ready to be converted into a temple. Priests of 
the most ancient faiths of Palestine, Assyria, Babylon, 
Thebes, Persia, were permitted to erect the altar at 
the point where the transverse beam of the cross 
meets the main stem. The hands that constructed 
the temple in cruciform shape had long become too 
attenuated to cast the faintest shadow. There Devaki 
with the infant Crishna, Maya with the babe Boodha, 
Juno with the child Mars, represent Mary with Jesus 
in her arms. Coarse emblems are not rejected ; the 
Assyrian dove is a tender symbol of the Holy Ghost. 
The rag bags and toy boxes were explored. A bauble 
which the Roman school-boy had thrown away was 
picked up and called an "agnus dei." The musty 
wardrobes of forgotten hierarchies furnished costumes 
for the -officers of the new prince. Alb and chasuble 
recalled the fashions of Numa's day. The cast off 
purple habits and shoes of pagan emperors beautified 
the august persons of christian Popes. The cardinal 
must be contented with the robes once worn by 
senators. Zoroaster bound about the monks the 
girdle he invented as a protection against evil spirits, 
and clothed them in the frocks he had found conveni- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 151 

ent for his ritual. The Pope thrust out his foot to be 
kissed, as Caligula, Heliogabalus, and Julius Caesar 
had thrust out theirs. Nothing came amiss to the 
the faith that was to discharge henceforth the offices 
of spiritual impression. Stoles, veils, croziers, were 
all in requisition without too close scrutiny of their 
antecedents. A complete investigation of this sub- 
ject will probably reveal the fact that Christianity 
owes its entire wardrobe, ecclesiastical, symbolical, 
dogmatical, to the religions that preceded it. The 
point of difficulty to decide is in what respect Chris- 
tianity differs from the elder faiths. This is the next 
task its apologists have to perform. 

But this question does not concern us here. Hav- 
ing indicated the source whence the religion proceed- 
ed, and the process by which the successive stages in 
its development were reached, we have done all that 
was purposed. We have tried to make it clear that 
the Messianic conception from which it started, and 
from which its life was derived at each period of its 
growth, presided over its destiny in the western 
world, and introduced it to the place of honor it was 
afterwards called to fill. 

What that place was and how the Church filled 
it has been told in a multitude of historical books. 
The history of Christianity is not the story of a 
developing idea, but a record of the achievements of 
an idea developed, organized, instituted. From the 



1 82 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

date of the established religion, the writings of the 
New Testament became the literature of the earliest 
period. In the western world the mind of Chris- 
tendom expanded to deeper and wider thoughts, a new 
literature was originated of great richness, affluence 
and beauty, and gave expression to ideas which, in 
the primitive period could not have been formed. 
The Greek and Latin Fathers, the schoolmen, the 
catholic theologians, Italian, Spanish, French, the 
German mystical writers, the Protestant divines 
and preachers, have produced writings unsurpassed in 
intellectual strength and spiritual discernment. The 
possibilities of speculation have been exhausted ; the 
abysses of reflection have been sounded; the heights 
of meditation have been scaled. The christian idea 
of salvation has been applied to every phase of hu- 
man experience, and to every problem of social life. 
The rudimental conceptions have been distanced ; 
the original limitations have been overpassed. Rites 
have been charged with new significance, sym- 
bols loaded with new meanings, doctrines interpreted 
in new senses. Christianity as the modern world 
knows it, is a new creation. The name of Messiah 
is spoken, but with feelings unknown to the Jews of 
the first and second century. The New Testament 
is regarded as a store house of germs, a magazine of 
texts to be interpreted by the light of the full orbed 
spirit, and unfolded to meet the needs of an older 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 83 

world. The cord which connected the religion with 
the mother faith of Israel was broken and the faith 
entered on an independent existence. To the cradle 
succeeds the cathedral. 



IX. 



JESUS. 

It will be remarked that in the foregoing chapters 
no account is given of Jesus, and no account made of 
him. His name has not been written except where 
the common usage of speech made it necessary. The 
writer has carefully avoided occasion for expressing 
an opinion in regard to his character, his performance, 
or his claim ; has carefully avoided so doing ; the 
omission has been intentional. The purpose of his 
essay is to give the history of an idea, not the history 
of a person, to trace the development of a thought, 
not the influence of a life, letting it be inferred 
whether the life were necessary, and if necessary, 
wherein and how far necessary to the shaping of the 
thought. But this task will not be judged to have 
been fairly discharged unless he declares the nature 
of the inference he himself draws. The question 
" What think ye of the Christ ? " meaning " What 
think ye of Jesus ? " may be fairly put to him, and 
should be frankly answered. That there are two dis- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 85 

tinct questions here proposed, need not at the close 
of this essay be said. Jesus is the name of a man ; 
Christ, or rather The Christ, is the name of an idea. 
The history of Jesus is the history of an individual ; the . 
history of the Christ is the history of a doctrine. An 
essay on the Christ-idea touches the person of Jesus, 
only as he is associated with the Christ-idea or is made 
a representative of it. Had he not been associated 
with that idea, either through his own design or in 
the belief of his countrymen, the omission of all men- 
tion of his name would provoke no criticism. The 
common opinion that he was in some sense the 
Christ ; that but for him the Christ-idea would not 
have been made conspicuous in the way and at the 
time it was ; that the existence of the Christian 
Church, the conversion of Paul, the composition of 
the New Testament, the course of religious thought 
in the eastern and western world was directed by his 
mind ; that the social life, — the morals and manners, 
the heart, conscience, feeling, soul — of mankind, in 
the earlier and later centuries of his era was deter- 
mined by his character, renders necessary a word of 
comment on the validity of his individual claim. 

If either of the four gospels is to be accepted as 
biography it must be the first, as being the earliest in 
date, and as containing less than either of the others 
of speculative admixture. The first gospel rests, ac- 
cording to an ancient tradition, on memoranda or 



1 86 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

notes taken by a companion of Jesus and afterwards 
written out, in the popular language of the country, 
for the use of the disciples and others in Judea and 
Galilee. The disappearance of all save a few frag- 
ments of this book, and of any writing answering in 
description to it, the impossibility of identifying it 
with the present Gospel of Matthew, or of proving 
that the existing Gospel of Matthew rests upon it ;* 
the comparatively late date to which our Greek 
Matthew must be assigned — thirty years at least, prob- 
ably fifty or sixty after Jesus' death, and the absolute 
failure of all attempts to trace its records to an eye 
witness of any sort, (say nothing of a competent eye 
* The character and influence of the "Gospel of the He- 
brews " and of other books of the same kind is considered in 
full by Mr. S. Baring-Gould in " The Lost and Hostile Gospels." 
Mr. Baring-Gould argues that while neither of our present Gos- 
pels is entitled to be called genuine in the ordinary sense, they 
contain authentic biographical materials. It is his opinion that 
"at the close of the first century almost every Church had its 
own Gospel, with which alone it was acquainted. But it does 
not follow that these Gospels were not as trustworthy as 
the four which we now alone recognize." p. 23. Mr. Baring- 
Gould's argument is not strong. The first mention of the 
" Gospel of the Hebrews " is no earlier than the middle of the 
second century; the remaining fragments of it are too few and 
too undecisive to be of weight ; and it was, by all confession, 
written in the interest of the Nazarene or Judaizing Christians. 
Mr. Baring-Gould himself classes it with the Clementine writ- 
ings and calls them " The Lost Petrine Gospels." 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 87 

witness, clear of head, tenacious of memory, veracious 
in speech,) all conspire to stamp with imprudence the 
conjecture that the Christ of Matthew and the Jesus 
of history were one and the same. This would be 
the case were the picture harmoniously proportioned, 
as it is not. 

The fourth Gospel is usually accepted as the 
work of a disciple, the " loved disciple," the bosom 
friend, whose apprehension of the spiritual character 
of Jesus was much keener and truer than that of 
any business man, any mere follower, any common- 
place, inconspicuous person like Matthew. But the 
fourth Gospel, allowing that it was written by John 
the disciple, must, to insist on a former remark, have 
been written in his extreme old age, and after a men- 
tal and spiritual transformation so complete as to 
leave no trace of the Galilean youth whom Jesus took 
to his heart. The* zealot has become a mystic ; the 
Palestinian Jew has become an Asiatic Greek: the 
''son of thunder'' is a philosopher; the fisherman 
is a cultivated writer, acquainted with the subtlest 
forms of speculation. Is it conceivable that such 
a man should have retained his impressions of bio- 
graphical incidents and personal traits, or that retain- 
ing them he should have allowed them their due 
prominence in his record ? can his picture be ac- 
cepted as a portrait ? 

Certainly, some are impatient to say, and for this 



1 88 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

very reason ; as the perfect, the only portrait ; the 
picture of the very man, the biography of his soul ; we 
accept it as we accept Plato's portrait of Socrates. 
But do we accept Plato's protrait of Socrates, as a 
piece done to the life ? Plato was a great artist, as 
all the world knows from his authentic works. But 
even in his case, we do not know whether he, in 
depicting Socrates, meant to paint the man as he 
really was, or an ideal head, conceived according to 
the Socratic type. To compare John's portrait of 
Jesus with Plato's portrait of Socrates, is besides, a 
proceeding quite illogical ; for we must assume, in 
the first place, that John painted this portrait of 
Jesus, and in the next place that the portrait must 
be a good one because he painted it, — this being the 
only piece of his ever on exhibition. 

To say with Renan and others that the idealized 
likeness must from the nature of the case be the 
correct one, because such a person as Jesus was, is 
best seen at a distance and by poetic gaze, is again 
to beg the question. How do we know that Jesus 
was such a person? How do we know that the most 
spiritual apprehension of him, was the truest ; that 
they judged him most justly, who judged him from 
the highest point ; that the glorifying imaginations 
alone presented his full stature and proportions, that 
the ordinary minds immediately about him necessarily 
misconstrued and misrepresented him ? In the order 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 89 

of experience, historical and biographical truth is dis- 
covered by stripping off layer after layer of exaggera- 
tion and going back to the statements of contempora- 
ries. As a rule, figures are reduced, not enlarged, 
by criticism. The influence of admiration is recog- 
nized as distorting and falsifying, while exalting. The 
process of legend-making begins immediately, goes on 
rapidly and with accelerating speed, and must be 
liberally allowed for by the seeker after truth. In 
scores of instances the historical individual turns out 
to be very much smaller than he was painted by his 
terrified or loving worshippers. In no single case 
has it been established that he was greater, or as 
great. It is no doubt, conceivable that such a case 
should occur, but it never has occurred, in known 
instances, and cannot be presumed to have occurred 
in any particular instance. The presumptions are 
against the correctness of the glorified image. The 
disposition to exaggerate is so much stronger than 
the disposition to underrate, that even really great 
men are placed higher than they belong oftener than 
lower. The historical method works backwards. 
Knowledge shrinks the man. Eminent examples that 
jump to recollection instantly confirm this view. 

The case of Mahomet is in point. Here, the crit- 
ical procedure was twofold ; first to rescue a figure 
from the depths of infamy and then to recover the 
same figure from the cloudlancl of fancy. Under 



I9O THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

the pressure of christian hate the fame of Mahomet 
sank to the lowest point. He was impostor, liar, 
cheat, name for all shamefulness. From this muck 
heap he has been plucked by valiant hands,, and 
placed on the list of heroes. Now another process 
is beginning, to find precisely what kind of hero he 
was ; and it is safe to say that under this process the 
dimensions of the hero shrink. The arabian estimate 
of the prophet will not bear close examination. The 
glamor of pious enthusiasm being dispelled, the 
traits of nationality show themselves ; the ecstasy is 
seen to be complicated with epilepsy ; the revelations 
partake of the general oriental character ; the truths 
are the cardinal truths of the Semitic religions ; the 
personal qualities are of the same cast that dis- 
tinguishes the arabian mind. The detestation and 
the homage are both unjustifiable. 

Another example in point is Buddha ; a name 
covered by ages of fable, and so thickly that his 
historical existence was long doubted. It was 
questioned whether he was anything more substantial 
than a vision. The mist of legend has already been 
so far dispersed that a grand form is discerned moving 
up and down in India. Presently it will be measured 
and outlined. It is safe to predict intellectual and 
moral shrinkage of the person under the operation of 
this scrutiny. Just now the impression of his great- 
ness is somewhat overpowering. He looks morally 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I9I 

gigantic as compared with teachers who are better 
known. We quote his sayings with unbounded admi- 
ration ; we commend his life as an illustration of what- 
ever most exalts humanity. But if the time ever 
comes when his lineaments are fully revealed to sight, 
he will be found neither much greater nor much better 
than his generation justified. 

The critics of Strauss' " Life of Jesus " insisted on 
the necessity of a historical foundation for his 
character. Such a person they declared must have 
lived ; he could not have been invented. Strange 
position to take, in view of the fact that idealization is 
one of the commonest feats of mankind ; that the 
human imagination is continually constructing 
heroes out of poltroons, and transmuting lead into 
gold ! Some idealization there is, by the general con- 
fession of unprejudiced men. The whole cannot be 
received as literal fact. There is here and there a 
bit of color put on to heighten the effect. Who shall 
decide how much ? If the figure is glorified a little, 
why not a great deal ? If a great deal, why not 
altogether? The materials for constructing the per- 
son being given, as they are, in the hebrew genius, 
,and the plastic power being provided as it is, by the 
hebrew enthusiasm, the result might have been pre- 
dicted, a good way in advance of history. The 
argument against Strauss' method proves too much. 

The critics of Baur urged with ceaseless iteration 



192 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

the absurdity of accounting for the New Testament, 
and explaining the developments of the first century, 
by means of bodiless ideas, substituting phantoms of 
thought for persons, intellectual issues for the inter- 
actions of living men. Life, it was said, presupposes 
life ; life alone generates life. To create a New 
Testament out of rabbinical fancies is preposterous. 
True enough. History is not spectral ; but neither 
are ideas spectral. Ideas imply living minds, and 
living minds are persons. But the persons are not 
of necessity single individuals. They may be multi- 
tudes ; they may be generations ; they probably are a 
nation. The individuals that loom up conspicuously 
represent multitudes, an epoch, of which they are 
mouth pieces and agents. Do no individuals whatever 
loom up ? None the less creative is the epoch ; none 
the less vital are the ideas. The great events of the 
world depend not on individuals, but on the cumula- 
tive force and providential meeting of wide social 
tendencies that have been gathering head for ages 
and pointing in certain directions. Mahomet, a sensi- 
tive, receptive, responsive spirit, gave a name to the 
arabian movement ; he neither originated it, nor 
finally shaped it. Luther, brave, self-poised, inde- 
pendent soul, was not the author of the Reformation, 
though he gave character to it. Others had gone be- 
fore him, and broken a way. The time for reforma- 
tion had come, thousands were watching for the light 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I93 

which Luther descried, and eagerly aided in its diffu- 
sion. Innumerable sparks burst into flame. He 
was child, not father of the movement ; so it may have 
been with Jesus, with Peter, with Paul. They pre- 
supposed the ideas of their age, and the agency of 
living men. The literature of the New Testament, 
which is all that Baur concerned himself with, stands 
for what it is, a literature ; a product of intellectual 
activity in the age that created it. The popular 
notion that Scripture was penned by men whose 
minds were full of thoughts not their own, but God's, 
contains a rational truth. All great literature, all 
literature that is not occasional, incidental, ephemeral, 
is inspired in this sense. The writers held the pen 
while the spirit of their age, of many ages, of all ages 
at length, rolled through them. It is true of all repre- 
sentative, of all national books. It is true of the 
"Iliad " of Homer, of Dante's Divina Commeclia, of the 
Book of Job, the Koran, the " Three Kings," the 
Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Dhammapada, the 
elder Edda. Such books as express the mind of an 
epoch are productions of an era, not of a man. The 
productive force is in the time. The man is of 
moment but incidentally. In discussing such works, 
all consideration of the man may be dispensed with. 
Strauss and Baur were Hegelians, who regarded the 
world-movements described in literatures and events, 
as moments in the experience of God. Nothing to 



194 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

them, therefore, was spectral. In tracing the pedigree 
of ideas, they felt themselves to be tracing the foot- 
prints of Deity. 

The difficulty of constructing one harmonious 
character from the four gospels of the New Testa- 
ment need not be expatiated on here. It is a difficulty 
that never has been overcome, and that increases in 
dimensions with our knowledge of the book. It is, of 
course possible, not easy, but possible, for one stand- 
ing at either extreme to drag the opposite extreme 
into apparent accord. The believer in the divinity of 
the Christ planting himself on the doctrine of the 
Logos, reads his theory into the earlier gospels, loads 
the language with meaning it was never meant to bear, 
stretches the homely incidents on the rack of his hy- 
pothesis, and painfully excavates the figure he has 
already laid there. The believer in the humanity of 
the Christ, pursuing the opposite method, belittles the 
Johannean conception till it comes within the compass 
of his argument, dilutes the statements, expurgates 
and attenuates the thought, till nothing remains but 
sentimentalism. Each vindicates one view by sacri- 
ficing the other. To one who would preserve both 
representations, the task of combination is desperate. 
They are the centres of two opposite systems. One 
is a human being, a man ; the other is a demi-god. 
One is a teacher of moral and religious truth; the 
other is an incarnation of the truth. One indicates the 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I95 

way ; the other is the way. One invites to life ; the 
other is the life. One talks about God and immortali- 
ty ; the other manifests God, and is immortality. One 
points to heaven ; the other " is in heaven." One is 
a helpful human friend ; the other is a divine Saviour. 
One claims allegiance on the ground of his providen- 
tial calling ; the other demands spiritual surrender on 
the ground of his transcendent nature. One collects 
a body of disciples ; the other forms and consecrates 
a church, and puts it in charge of a Holy Spirit, that 
shall save it from error and evil. After what has been 
said in previous chapters it is unnecessary to enlarge. 
Let whoever will take Furness' portrait of Jesus on 
one hand, and Pressense's on the other ; let him place 
them side by side ; let him subject them to close 
scrutiny, comparing each with the original sketches ; 
and he will rise from the contemplation satisfied that 
the two pictures cannot represent the same person. 

Scarcely less is the difficulty of constructing a 
harmonious character from the first gospel alone. 
Renan brought to this experiment rare powers of 
mind, and a singular skill in letters. An orientalist, 
well versed in the productions of eastern genius ; an 
accomplished literary investigator, practised in dis- 
cerning between, the genuine and the spurious ; with- 
out dogmatic prejudice or predilection, neither 
christian nor anti-christian ; enthusiastic, yet criti- 
cal ; approaching the subject from the historical 



ICj5 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

direction ; preparing himself laboriously for his task, 
and devoting to it all the capacity there was in him, 
Renan yet signally failed to construct a morally har- 
monious figure. Though conceiving Jesus as simply 
a man, he was obliged to resort to most obnoxious 
extravagances to make the narratives cohere. The 
" Vie de Jesus " is a standing refutation of the theory 
that the elements of a harmonious biography are to 
be found in the first gospel. It is the Christ of the 
first gospel who curses unbelieving and inhospitable 
cities ; who threatens to deny in heaven those that 
deny him on earth ; who speaks of the unpardonable 
sin, that " shall not be forgiven, either in this 
world, or in the world to come ; " who will have none 
called "Master" but himself; who condemns to 
" everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his an- 
gels " those who have not assisted " these my breth- 
ren ; " who bids his friends regard as no better than 
" a heathen man and a publican," the offender who 
will not listen to the Church ; who launches indis- 
criminate invective against scribes and pharisees ; 
who anticipates sitting on a throne, a judge of all 
nations, with his chosen followers sitting on twelve 
thrones of authority in the same kingdom. These 
statements must be qualified, allegorized, "spiritu- 
alized" a good deal, before they can be made congenial 
with the attributes of meekness, humility, gentleness, 
patience, loving-kindness, human sympathy, benevo- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 97 

lence, justice, that adorn the image of a human 
Jesus. One set of qualities or the other, must be dis- 
avowed, unless we would incur the reproach that has 
fallen on Renan, of transforming Jesus into a terri- 
bly magnificent, and superbly unlovely person. Of 
this there is no necessity, for there is no necessity 
for constructing a harmonious character, on any hypo- 
thesis. We are not called on to construct a char- 
acter at all. We may frankly own that the materials 
for constructing a character are not furnished. The 
first gospels exhibit stages in the development of the 
Christ idea ; they do not give a portraiture of the 
man Jesus. 

The hypothesis of mental and sentimental devel- 
opment in the experience of Jesus comes to the aid of 
the believers. Signs of such an interior progress do 
certainly appear, or can be made to appear by force of 
enthusiastic exegesis. The teacher who admonishes 
his disciples not to cast their pearls before swine, re- 
lates, with approval, the parable of the sower who flung 
his seed right and left, heedless that some fell on thorns 
that grew np and choked them, and some on stony 
ground, where having no root, they withered away. 
The man who twice frigidly repulsed the Canaanite 
woman who begged on her knees the boon of his com- 
passion, telling her that he was not sent, save to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel, adding, " it is not meet 
to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs," not 



I90 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

only extends his effectual sympathy to her in her imme- 
diate need, but is found afterward, seeking and saving 
these very lost, going into the wilderness to find them 
that had gone astray, visiting the country of the 
pagan Gergesenes, and opening the blind eyes of Sa- 
maritans. The twelve disciples called and sent to the 
twelve tribes of Israel, one to each tribe, none to spare 
for the people beyond the borders of Palestine, be- 
came later seventy apostles commissioned to carry 
the message of the kingdom to all the tribes of the 
earth. The exorciser of evil spirits begins by casting 
devils into the herd of swine, thus " spoiling the pig- 
market " of a village, herein showing himself a true 
Jew, and ends by sitting at meat with publicans and 
sinners. By ingenious piecing, light skipping over 
dates and discrepancies careless of sequence and con- 
sequence, with resolute purpose to extract from the 
documents, by all or any means, a consistent human 
character, the development theory may be pushed 
a little way. But it soon comes against an insur- 
mountable difficulty ; the stream narrows just where 
it ought to widen, namely, as it approaches the 
ocean. It is towards the end of his career that the 
fanaticism discloses itself. The terrible outbreaks of 
anger, the invectives, the diatribes, the superb claims 
of authority, the horrid descriptions of the day of 
judgment, the discouragement and despair, come at the 
last. The serenity disappears ; the sunlight pales ; 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 99 

the day closes in mist. The man shrinks, instead of 
expanding, as he grows. 

This is Renan's account of it ; an account more 
deeply colored with gloom than need be ; for that the 
baffled, tortured Jesus, lost his moral poise, and be- 
came a deliberate impostor, is not fairly deducible 
from any text ; but the account is still essentially close 
and natural. Starting, as Renan does, from the po- 
sition that the four gospels contain materials for an 
intelligible portraiture of Jesus ; that those materials 
may be discovered, sifted, and arranged so as to pro- 
duce a well proportioned figure ; and that the principle 
of this human construction, must, on the supposition, 
be the principle according to which the characters of 
men are and must be constructed, namely, by tracing 
the actions and reactions between them and the cir- 
cumstances of their time and place ; starting, we say, 
from this position, it is difficult to avoid the inferences 
that he draws in regard to the disastrous effect that 
skepticism and opposition had on the mental and 
moral character of the hero. That " he made no conces- 
sion to necessity ; " that " he boldly declared war 
against nature, a complete rupture with kindred ; " 
that " he exacted fom his associates an utter aban- 
donment of terrestrial satisfactions, an absolute conse- 
cration to his work," is no more than the plain texts 
imply. Renan does not strain language when he 
says : " In his excess of rigor, he went so far as to 



200 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

suppress natural desire. His requirements knew no 
bounds. Scorning the wholesome limitations of hu- 
man nature, he would have people live for him only, 
love him alone." " Something preternatural and 
strange mingled with his discourse ; as if a fire was 
consuming the roots of his life, and reducing the 
whole to a frightful desert. The sentiment of disgust 
towards the world, gloomy and bitter, of excessive ab- 
negation which characterizes christian perfection, had 
for its author, not the sensitive joyous moralist of the 
earlier time, but the sombre titan, whom a vast and 
appalling presentiment carried further and further 
away from humanity. It looks as though, in these 
moments of conflict with the most legitimate desires 
of the heart, he forgot the pleasure of living and lov- 
ing, of seeing and feeling." "It is easy to believe 
that from the view of Jesus, at this epoch of his life, 
every thought save for the kingdom of God, had 
wholly disappeared. He was, so to speak, entirely out 
of nature ; family, friends, country had no meaning to 
him." " A strange passion for suffering and persecu- 
tion possessed him. His blood seemed the water of a 
second baptism he must be bathed in, and he had the 
air of one driven by a singular impulse to anticipate 
this baptism which alone could quench his thirst." 
"At times his reason seemed disturbed. He expe- 
rienced inward agitations and agonies. The tremen- 
dous vision of the kingdom of God, ceaselessly flaming 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 201 

before his eyes, made him giddy. His friends thought 
him, at moments, beside himself. His enemies de- 
clared him possessed by a devil. His passionate tem- 
perament, carried him, in an instant, over the borders 
of human nature. * * * Urgent, imperious, he 
brooked no opposition. His native gentleness left 
him ; he was at times rude and fantastical. * * * 
At times his ill humor against all opposition pushed 
him to actions unaccountable and preposterous. It 
was not that his virtue sank ; his struggle against re- 
ality in the name of the ideal became insupportable. 
He hurled himself in angry revolt against the world. 
* * * The tone he had assumed could not be sus- 
tained more than a few months. It was time for 
death to put an end to a situation strained to excess, 
to snatch him from the embarrassments of a path that 
had no issue, and, delivered from a trial too protracted, 
to introduce him, stainless, into the serenity of his 
heaven." 

This is strong language, even shocking to minds 
accustomed to worship a character of ideal perfection. 
But it is scarcely bolder than the case warrants. The 
privilege to pick and choose material has its limits. We 
have no right to take what pleases us and leave the 
rest. Statements that rest on equal evidence deserve 
equal acceptance. If the result be not agreeable, the 
responsibility is not with the critic. 

The only wonder is that such a person as the literal 



202 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

record justifies, should be accepted as the founder of a 
religion. How can Renan stand before his portrait 
of Jesus, and say, " the man here delineated merits a 
place at the summit of human grandeur ; " "this is the 
supreme man ; a sublime personage ; " " every day 
he presides over the destiny of the world ; to call him 
divine is no exaggeration ; amid the columns that, in 
vulgar uniformity crowd the plain, there are some 
that point to the skies and attest a nobler destiny for 
man ; Jesus is the loftiest of these ; in him is concen- 
tred all that is highest and best in human nature." 
Such a conclusion is not justified by the premises. 
The homage is not warranted by the facts. It will 
not do to make out a catalogue of human weaknesses, 
and then urge those very weaknesses as a chief title 
to glory. 

In the opinion of some it is wiser and kinder to 
confess at once that the image of Jesus has been irre- 
coverably lost. In the judgment of these, it is unphil- 
osophical to set up an ideal where none is required. 
No doubt every effect must have a cause, but to as- 
sume the cause, or to insist on the validity of any 
single or special cause, is unscientific. Each event has 
many causes, a complexity of causes. Renan him- 
self says : " It is undeniable that circumstances told 
for much, in the success of this wonderful revolution. 
Each stage in the development of humanity has its 
privileged epoch, in which it reaches perfection with- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 203 

out effort, by a sort of spontaneous instinct. The 
Jewish state offered the most remarkable intellectual 
and moral conditions that the human race ever pre- 
sented. It was one of those divine moments when a 
thousand hidden forces conspire to produce grand re- 
sults, when fine spirits are supported by floods of 
admiration and sympathy." 

In truth, was such a person as Jesus is presumed 
to have been, necessary to account for the existence 
of the religion afterwards called Christian ? As an 
impelling force he was not required, for his age was 
throbbing and bursting with suppressed energy. 
The pressure of the Roman empire was required to 
keep it down. The Messianic hope had such vitality 
that it condensed into moments the moral results of 
ages. The common people were watching to see the 
heavens open, interpreted peals of thunder as angel 
voices, and saw divine portents in the flight of birds. 
Mothers dreamed that their boys would be Messiah. 
The wildest preacher drew a crowd. The heart of 
the nation swelled big with the conviction that the 
hour of destiny was about to strike, that the kingdom 
of heaven was at hand. The crown was ready for 
any kingly head that might dare to assume it. That 
in such a state of things anticipation should fulfil 
itself, the dream become real, the vision become solid, 
is not surprising. It was not the first time faith has 
become fact. The first generation of our era exhib- 



204 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

ited no phenomena that preceding generations had 
not prepared for and could not produce. No surprising 
original force need have been manifested. The spirit 
was the native spirit of the old vine growing in the old 
vineyard. 

Jesus is not necessary to account for the ethics of 
the New Testament. They were as has been said, 
the native ethics of Judaism, unqualified. The breadth 
and the limitation, the ideal beauty and the practical 
point were alike Jewish. The gorgeous abstractions, 
gathered up in one discourse, look like fresh revela- 
tions of God ; as autumn leaves plucked and set in a 
vase seem more luminous than do myriads of the 
same leaves covering the mountains and the meadows, 
their crimson and gold blending with the brown of 
the soil and the infinite blue of the sky. The ethics 
of the New Testament, like the ethics of the Old, 
have their root in the faith that Israel was a chosen 
people ; in the expectation of a king in whom the 
faith should be crowned ; in the anticipation of a 
judgment day, a national restoration, a celestial sun- 
burst, a final felicity for the faithful of Israel. The en- 
thusiasm, the extravagance, the fanaticism, the passive 
trust, the active intolerance, the asceticism, the arbitra- 
riness, bespeak in the one case as in the other, the pres- 
ence of an intense but narrow spirit. They are not the 
ethics of this world. They are not temporal. The 
power of an original, creative soul should be attested 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 205 

by some modification of the popular code, rather 
than by an exaggeration of it. We should look for 
something new, not for a more emphatic repetition of 
the old. But nothing new appears. The exaggera- 
tions are exaggerated ; the precepts suggested by the 
distant prospect of the kingdom are simply reiterated 
in view of its speedy establishment. Trust in Provi- 
dence and faith in the Messiah are all in all ; the 
virtues of common existence are less and less. The 
inhumanities that Renan ascribes to an access of fan- 
aticism in Jesus are the humanities of an unreal 
Utopia. 

The prodigious manifestation of mental and 
spiritual force that broke out in Paul requires no ex- 
planation apart from his own genius. He never saw 
Jesus and apparently was incurious about him. His 
originality was intellectual, and his system bears no 
trace of a foreign personality. As Renan says : " The 
Christ who communicates private revelations to him is 
a phantom of his own making ;" " It is himself he list- 
ens to, while fancying that he hears Jesus." If ever man 
was self-motived, self-impelled, self-actuated, it was he. 
He needed no prompter. Hot of brain and heart, he 
was only too swift to move. Whether, as some think, 
driven by over-mastering ambition to lead a new 
movement, or, as others contend, constrained by in- 
ward urgency to attempt a moral reform on a specula- 
tive basis, or, according to yet a third supposition, 



205 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

eager to bear the glad tidings of the gospel to the 
gentile world, his own genius was from first to last, 
his guide and inspiration. There is no evidence to 
prove that his " conversion " added anything new to 
the mass of his moral nature, or changed the quality 
of ruling attributes, or determined the bent of his will 
to unpremeditated issues. He was converted to the 
Christ, not to Jesus ; and his conversion to the Christ, 
was nothing absolutely unprepared for. His zeal for 
Israel blazed furiously against the disciples who 
claimed that the Christ had come, and to the end of 
his stormy days it still continued to burn against dis- 
ciples of the narrow school who would not believe he 
had come to any but Jews. His zeal for Israel, sent 
him away by himself to meditate a grander Christ. 
The Christ, not Jesus, was his watch-cry. A man of 
ideas, intensely interested in speculative questions, 
keenly alive to the joy of controversy and the ecstasy 
of propagandism, he filled his boiler with water as he 
rushed along, leaving Peter and the rest to fill theirs at 
the nazarene spring. So little is Jesus to be credited 
with Paul's achievement, that it is the fashion to call 
his a distinct movement. Enthusiastic admirers of 
his genius, call him the real founder of Christianity. 
Severe critics of his claim accuse him of corrupting 
the religion of Jesus in its spirit, and diverting it 
from its purpose. On either supposition, he was not 
a disciple. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 2C>7 

The worship of Jesus, it has been said, is the 
redeeming feature of Christianity. This evidently is 
the opinion of John Stuart Mill, who writes, confound- 
ing, as is usual, Jesus with the Christ : " The most 
valuable part of the effect on the character which 
Christianity has produced by holding up in a divine 
person a standard of excellence and a model for imita- 
tion, is available even to the absolute unbeliever, and 
can nevermore be lost to humanity. For it is Christ 
rather than God whom Christianity has held up to 
believers as the pattern of perfection for humanity. 
It is the God incarnate, more than the God of the 
Jews or of nature, who being idealized has taken so 
great and salutary a hold on the modern mind; " and 
more to the same effect, in the essay on Theism = 
Before Mr. Mill's intellectual eccentricities were as 
well understood as they are now, this testimony to the 
humanizing influence of christian, as distinct from 
philosophical theism, would have possessed great 
weight. As it is, it only excites our wonder that 
so keen and inexorable a thinker should so completely 
lose sight of facts. That Christendom has wor- 
shipped the Christ is true. Is it true that it has 
worshipped Jesus ? Again we might say : Yes ; — the 
Jesus who demanded faith in himself as the condition 
of salvation ; the Jesus who depicted the Son of Man, 
sitting on a throne of judgment, summoning before 
him all nations, and placing the sheep on his right 



208 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

hand, the goats on his left ; the Jesus who threatened 
everlasting fire, and spoke of the devil and his angels ; 
the Jesus who made the church umpire in matters of 
faith and works ; the Jesus who bade his friends for- 
sake father and mother, brother and sister for his 
sake. But did Christendom ever deify the man of the 
Beatitudes, the relator of the parables of the Good 
Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, the friend of public- 
ans and sinners ? Is Jesus the central figure in the 
Nicene, or the Athanasian creed? Is he the God of 
Calvin, or of Luther, of Augustine, even of Borromeo, 
or Fenelon ? Long before the dogmatical or ecclesias- 
tical system of Christendom was formed, the image of 
Jesus had faded away from the minds of christians, if 
it ever was stamped there. That it was ever stamped 
there is not quite apparent. In the east there exists 
no trace of it after the apostolic age, or beyond the 
circle of his personal friends. In the west the per- 
sonal influence is not distinctly visible at any dis- 
tance. From the reported heroism of the early 
christian centuries no solid conclusion can be drawn, 
for the reason that the reports come from panegyrists 
like Tertullian, and from a period when the apostolic 
age had become a tradition. Writers like Neander 
make the most of a few recorded instances of devotion 
which distinguished the christians from the pagans 
about them ; and James Martineau uses them as evi- 
dence of an original spiritual genius in the young 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 2C»9 

religion. They are indeed beautiful, but they do not 
refer back so far as the historical Jesus for their source 
of inspiration. That in a community composed, with 
scarcely an exception, of poor people, the ordinary 
social distinctions should be unobserved ; that slaves, 
among whom in early times many converts were 
made, should have been acknowledged as brethren in 
Christ ; should have appeared in public religious 
meetings as equal with the rest before the Lord; 
should have partaken of the communion on the same 
terms, taking their place among the believers, and 
receiving the passionless kiss of brotherhood and 
of sisterhood, is not surprising, especially when it is 
considered that these slaves belonged to hardy, white 
races, that they discharged, some of them at least, the 
most honorable offices of labor, and were, except for the 
mere accident of their condition, physically as well as 
morally, peers of the best. 

It is simply in the course of nature that poor peo- 
ple, grouped in communities, sharing a common and 
a painful lot, should help each other in times of trou- 
ble. The christians did so. At every weekly or 
monthly service collections were made for the relief of 
the poor, the sick, the infirm, the aged, widows, pris- 
oners, and toilers in the mines. These contributions 
were sent to the points of greatest need, converging on 
occasion from many directions at centres of extreme 

necessity. It is recorded that about the middle of 

i4 



210 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

the third century several members of the church in 
Numidia, men and women, were carried off captive 
by barbarians. The Numidian churches being poor 
applied to the Metropolitan church at Carthage. 
Cyprian, the bishop there, collected more than four 
thousand dollars in his diocese and sent the money as 
ransom, with a letter full of sentiments of kindness. 
On another occasion a portion of the sacred vessels of 
the sanctuary were sold to raise funds for a similar pur- 
pose. In this there was nothing strange. The acts 
were done in strict conformity with a long established 
usage. 

A more remarkable example often cited in evi- 
dence that the spirit of Jesus was alive still in the 
societies that worshipped him as Lord, occurred in 
the year 254, shortly after the Decian persecution, 
the most general and the most hideous to which the 
church had been exposed. In consequence of this 
persecution, which was attended with such slaughter 
that the unburied bodies poisoned the air, a fearful 
pestilence broke out in the city of Alexandria. Un- 
happily for the literalness of the truth, it is Lactantius 
who tells the story. " The plague," he says, " made 
its appearance with tremendous violence and desola- 
ted the city, so that, as Dionysius, the Christian 
Lbishop writes, there were not so many inhabitants 
left, of all ages, as heretofore could be numbered be- 
tween forty and seventy. In this emergency the per- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 211 

secuted christians forgot all but their Lord's precept, 
and were unwearied in their attendance on the sick, 
many perishing in the performance of this duty by 
taking the infection. ' In this way ' says the bishop 
with touching simplicity, ' the best of the brethren de- 
parted this life, some ministers, and some deacons,' 
the heathen having abandoned their friends and re- 
lations to the care of the very persons whom they had 
been accustomed to call men-haters. A like noble 
self-devotion was shown at Carthage, when the 
pestilence which had desolated Alexandria made its 
appearance in that city, and, I quote the words of a 
contemporary, ' all fled in horror from the contagion, 
abandoning their relations and friends, as if they 
thought that by avoiding the plague, any one might 
also exclude death altogether. Meanwhile the city 
was strewed with the bodies or rather carcasses of 
the dead, which seemed to call for pity from the 
passers by, who might themselves so soon share the 
same fate ; but no one cared for anything but miser- 
able pelf; no one trembled at the consideration of 
what might so soon befall him in his turn ; no one 
did for another what he would have wished others to 
do for him. The bishop hereupon called together his 
flock, and, setting before them the example and teach- 
ing of their Lord, called on them to act up to it. He 
said that if they took care only of their own people, 
they did but what the commonest feeling would 



212 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

dictate ; the servant of Christ must do more, he must 
love his enemies, and pray for his persecutors ; for 
God made his sun to rise and his rain to fall oh all 
alike, and he who would be the child of God must 
imitate his Father.' The people responded to his 
appeal ; they formed themselves into classes, and 
they whose poverty prevented them from doing mo re 
gave their personal attendance while those who had 
property aided yet further. No one quitted his post 
but with his life." The example shows the more 
gloriously against the dark background of horror that 
stood so near. Yet, to the misery of the persecution 
by which the people were educated in sympathy, 
patience, fortitude, and willingness to resign life, the 
benignant heroism must, in part, have been due. Pre- 
vious to the persecution the spirit of consecration had 
departed from the church. Christianity had become 
a social and class affair. Luxury had crept in, and eaten 
up the heart of conviction. The alliance of church 
and state had been especially disastrous to the church, 
the mingling of secular ambition with spiritual aspi- 
ration operating fatally on the finer qualities of faith. 
Few could have suspected then that the spirit of 
Jesus had ever been with the church. The persecu- 
tion purged the christian communities with fire. The 
surface was burned over, and only the roots and 
seeds were left in the ground. The persecution 
ended, tranquillitybeing restored, the roots burgeoned, 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 213 

the seeds sprung up, all the heroism of the two dread- 
ful years, all the patience and fortitude turned to 
gentleness; and a copious rain of mercy, blessing every 
body, even the persecutors, was the result of the 
battle's thunder and flame. The suffering that had 
been endured softened the heart towards all suffering. 
The persecutors no longer active or hateful, their 
passive forbearance seemed, in contrast with their 
recent fury, a species of mercy calling for positive 
gratitude. Not to be hated was felt to be identical 
with being loved ; not to kill was by sudden revulsion 
of emotion, accepted as a kindly saving of life. To be 
kind to those who had desisted from hurting was 
natural. Besides, the persecution was incited and 
pressed by the government in Rome. The populace 
even there were not responsible for it, and in the dis- 
tant provinces simply followed the metropolitan pre- 
cedent. Their infatuation had therefore its pitiable 
as well as its outrageous aspect. They too were 
victims of the imperial policy, were perishing of the 
contagion which that policy caused, and thus were 
paying a terrible penalty for their own unwitting 
crime. It is unnecessary to suppose that any per- 
sonal contagion from the character of Jesus, stealing 
through the murky ages of eastern and western life, 
communicated its saving grace to the Carthaginian 
brotherhood. Uninspired human nature is sufficient 
to explain the beneficent display. 



214 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

The conclusion is that no clearly defined traces of 
the personal Jesus remain on the surface or beneath 
the surface of Christendom. The silence of Josephus 
and other secular historians may be accounted for 
without falling back on a theory of hostility or con- 
tempt. The Christ-idea cannot be spared from Chris- 
tian development, but the personal Jesus, in some 
measure, can be. 

In some measure, not wholly ; the earliest period 
of the church does require his presence ; the first, 
the original, the only disciples lived under the in- 
fluence of a great personalty, and were moulded by it. 
Their attachment to a commanding friend is avowed 
in the apparently authentic parts of the New Testa- 
ment. If we know anything about those men, it is 
that they lived, moved and had their being in the 
memory of a great friend. Their attachment to 
him took hold of their heart-strings. They were 
haunted by him. This appears in their frequent 
meetings for the expression and confirmation of their 
feelings, in their communion suppers, memorial occa- 
sions purely and always, without a trace of mysticism 
or a shade of awe ; in their attachment to the places 
he had consecrated by his presence ; in their affection 
for each other. Ignorant they were, unintellectual, 
unspiritual in the moral sense of the word, rather im- 
pervious to ideas, dull, common place, simple-hearted. 
They were- not soaring spirits, audacious, independent 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 215 

like Paul, but exactly the reverse, timid, self-dis- 
trustful, pusillanimous by constitution. Their ambi- 
tion new low, fluttering* round sparkling jewels on 
the Messianic crown. Their master was not such 
an one as they would have chosen, had they been 
allowed to select. He met none of their expectations, 
he fulfilled none of their hopes. His rebuke was 
more frequent and more cordial than his praise. 
Their stupidity annoyed him, their selfishness grieved 
his heart. Instead of justifying their confidence in 
him as the Christ, he utterly overthrew one form of 
it by allowing himself to be captured, convicted and 
put to death. Still they clung to his memory. True, 
they clung to him in the conviction that he was the 
Christ and would have confessed themselves dupes 
had that conviction been dispelled. But why was it 
not dispelled ? Why did they believe, in the face of 
the crushing demonstration of the cross ? They 
anticipated his return, because he had told them he 
should reappear in clouds. But why did they believe 
him ? Why did they believe, when month after month, 
year after year, went by and still he did not return ? 
It was because they loved him, and trusted him in 
spite of evidence. When he did not return, they 
thought he meant to try their faith ; still they met 
together; still they prayed and waited, imagining 
themselves to be in intimate communion with him in 
his skies. 



2l6 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

That these men, with their unworthy conceptions 
of the kingdom, accepted him as their Christ, proves 
not only that his power over them was very great, but 
that he himself lived on the highest level of hebrew 
thought, and illustrated the highest type of hebrew 
character ; that he was a genuine prophet and saint ; 
all the more so, perhaps, for the completeness of his 
self-abnegation. Had he raised the standard of re- 
volt, and appealed to arms, his name might have been 
more conspicuous in secular history. He sacrificed 
himself wholly ; kept no shred of preeminence for his 
own behoof. 

Hence, the person of Jesus, though it may have 
been immense, is indistinct. That a great character 
was there may be conceded ; but precisely wherein 
the character was great, is left to our conjecture. Of 
the eminent persons who have swayed the spiritual 
destinies of mankind, none has more completely disap- 
peared from the critical view. The ideal image which 
christians have, for nearly two thousand years wor- 
shipped under the name of Jesus, has no authentic, 
distinctly visible counterpart in history. 

This conclusion will be distressing to those who 
have accorded to Jesus, by virtue of a perfect human- 
ity a certain primacy over the human race, and even 
to those who, regarding him as the complete fulfil- 
ment and perfect type of human character have looked 
to him as the beacon star " guiding the nations, grop- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 217 

ing on their way." It will be welcome only to the few 
calm minds who feel the force of ideas, the regen- 
erating power of principles. These will rejoice to be 
relieved of the last thin shadow of a supernatural au- 
thority in the past, and committed without reserve to 
the support and solace of simple humanity trained in 
the humble observance of uninterrupted law. Their 
gratitude for the human influence of the person is un- 
qualified by distrust of the claims of the individual. 

The Christ of the fourth Gospel — the incarnate 
Word — who has been asserting absolute spiritual cre- 
atorship over his disciples, calling himself the vine 
whereof they were branches, the door by which they 
must enter, the light by which they must walk, the 
way their steps must tread, — says to them at the criti- 
cal hour : " It is expedient for you that I go away ; 
if I go not away the Comforter cannot come to you." 
There was danger in his personal continuance. They 
were to live not in dependence on him, but in com- 
munion with the " Spirit of Truth," which, as pro- 
ceeding from him and from the Father also, was to 
bring freshly home to them what he had said, and to 
guide them further on to all truth. How many times 
must those words be repeated, with new applications 
in the new exigencies of faith ! How little disposi- 
tion do we find in his followers to heed them ! They 
have gone on with the process of idealization, placing 
him higher and higher ; making his personal existence 



2l8 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

more and more essential ; insisting more and more 
urgently on the necessity of private intercourse with 
him ; letting the Father subside into the background 
as an " effluence," and the Holy Ghost lapse from in- 
dividual identity into impersonal influence, in order 
that he might be all in all as regenerator and saviour. 
From age to age the personal Jesus has been made 
the object of an extreme adoration, till now, faith in 
the living Christ is the heart of the gospel ; philoso- 
phy, science, culture, humanity are thrust resolutely 
aside, and the great teachers of the race are extin- 
guished in order that his light may shine. 

Yet from age to age the warning has been given 
again, the vain farewell has been spoken, " it is expe- 
dient for you that I go away." Perhaps he went, in 
one form ; but he quickly re-appeared in another ; 
and each new presentation had its own special kind 
of evil effect. The Christ of Peter, James and John 
retired to make room for Paul's " Lord from heaven." 
He withdrew in favor of the incarnate Word. The 
incarnate Word loses irself in the Second Person of 
the Trinity. The imagination of man, unable to in- 
vent further transformations rested here : Christendom 
for fifteen hundred years has knelt in awe before the 
divine image it projected on the clouds of heaven. 
But the work of disenchantment began earlv. The 
sublimated ideal slowly came down from the skies. 
The glorified Christ assumed the lineaments of a 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 219 

human being, from Deity became archangel, chief of 
all the celestial hierarchy; from archangel slipped 
clown through the ranks of spirits, till he occupied the 
place of Son of God, preexistent, and in attributes, 
super-human ; thence he declined a step to the posi- 
tion of premiership over the human family, the in- 
augurator of a new type of man, virgin-born as indi- 
cating that he was not the natural product of the 
generations but was introduced into nature by an 
original law ; a further lapse from the supreme dignity 
brought him to the plane of humanity, but reported 
him as miraculously endowed with gifts from the Holy 
Spirit, supernaturally graced with attributes of power 
and wisdom, sent on a special mission to found a 
church and declare a law, raised from the dead to 
demonstrate immortality, and lifted to the skies to 
establish the presence of a living Deity. To this emi 
nent station he bids farewell to stand as the perfect 
man, teacher, reformer, saint, before the enthusiastic 
gaze of humanitarians, who made amends for the spoli- 
ation of his celestial wardrobe by the splendor with 
which they endowed his human soul. Here the idealists 
place him, still claiming for him no exceptional birth, 
no super-human origin, no preexistence, no miraculous 
powers over nature, no superiority of wit or wisdom, 
no immunity from errors of opinion or mistakes of 
judgment, no fated sanctity of will, no moral impecca- 
bility, but ascribing to him an unerringness of spiritual 



220 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

insight, an even loftiness of soul, an incorruptibility 
of conscience, a depth and comprehensiveness of hu- 
manity which raise him far above the plane of history, 
and tempt them to look longingly backward, instead of 
directing a steady gaze forward. But this figure is 
now seen to be an ideal, like the rest unjustified by 
chronicle or by fact. The comforter, which is the 
spirit of truth, requires that he should go away, follow- 
ing his predecessors into the realm of majestic and 
beneficent illusion. The Christ in every guise dis- 
appears and therj remain only the uneven and in- 
complete footprints of a son of man from which we 
can conclude only that a regal person at one time 
passed that way. 

All these transformations, it will be observed, came 
in the order of mental development, each timely and 
beneficent in its place. The crowning and the dis- 
crowning were alike inevitable and good. The glori- 
fication and the disappearance were both justified. 
The final change comes neither too late nor too soon ; 
not too late, for still the immense majority of mankind 
live in sentiment and imagination, worship ideal 
shapes, being quite incapable of appreciating knowl- 
edge, loving truth, or obeying principles. It will be 
generations yet, before any save the comparatively 
few think they can live without this great friend at 
their side. Sentiment is conservative. The poetic 
feeling detains in picturesque form the ideas which if 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 221 

exposed to the action of clear intelligence would be 
rejected as unsubstantial. The imagination like the 
ivy loves to beautify ruins, making even robber castles 
and deserted palaces attractive to tourists. Words- 
worth, the poet of Nature expresses the feeling that 
will at times come over powerful and cultivated 
minds, in moods of sentiment — 

The world is too much with us ; late and soon, 
Getting and spending we lay waste our powers. 
Little we see in Nature that is ours ; 
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! 
This Sea that bares her bosom to the Moon, 
The winds that will be howling at all hours, 
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, 
For this, for everything, we are out of tune, 
It moves us not ; — Great God ! I'd rather be 
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn, 
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea. 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 

This is pure sentiment. The sea was as lovely to 
Wordsworth, is as lovely to Tyndall, as it was to the 
superstitious Greeks. The winds awaken similar 
emotions in the sensitive being. Why then, should 
Wordsworth, having all that is or ever was to be had, 
beauty of form, movement, color, regret the super- 
stition that peopled the sea with fanciful beings and ani- 
mated the winds with supernatural spirits ? Why not 



222 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

be content with the facts, and the more content, be- 
because the fancies are gone that disguised them ? Is 
it not a weakness to love dreams better than realities ? 
Mr. Leslie Stephen, in his admirable "History of 
English Thought in the XVIII century" explains this 
mood of mind by saying that for the expression of feel- 
ing symbols are necessary, and superstition supplies 
all the symbols there are. The bare truth may awaken 
emotions, but it gives them no voice, and emotion un- 
uttered, becomes feeble ; in all but sensitive natures 
it dies." "In time," says Mr. Stephen, "the loss may 
be replaced, the new language may be learnt ; we may 
be content with direct vision, instead of mixing facts 
with dreams ; but the process is slow ; and till it is 
completed, the new belief will not have the old power 
over the mind. The symbols which have been asso- 
ciated with the hopes and fears, with the loftiest aspi- 
rations and warmest affections of so many generations 
may be proved to be only symbols ; but they long 
retain their power over the imagination." It is not 
wise, therefore, to be impatient with sentiment that 
has so valid an excuse ; nor is it magnanimous to stig- 
matize as weak and childish the romantic attachment 
to the symbol which is all that remains, which, with 
the unthinking, unadventurous multitude is so large a 
part of what abides of the mind's spiritual endowment. 
We must be patient with the conservatism that is born, 
not of fear, but of feeling, sympathizing when we can, 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 223 

with those that grieve when the idols lose their sancti- 
ty, and rejoicing that sentiment has the power to break 
the shock caused by the sudden dispelling of illusions. 
At the same time, it must be remembered that intel- 
lect is the propelling force in the intellectual world ; 
that the acute, unimaginative, determined minds, impa- 
tient of the mists, however beautiful, that conceal 
knowledge, clear a way for the homes and gardens 
of the new generations ; that the love of truth, simple 
and unadorned, is the mother at last of real beauty. 
The disappearance of the resplendent figure of the 
Christ from the heaven of our philosophy has not, 
therefore, come too soon ; for thinking, clear-sighted, 
brave and resolute minds there are. Discerning eyes, 
bright and gentle, look out and see the fields, sown 
with new seed, whitening for anew harvest. To such 
as these Jesus is no longer necessary for faith in hu- 
manity, for enthusiasm and constancy in humanity's 
service. Heroic men and saintly women exist in such 
numbers and in such variety that they sit in judg- 
ment on the judges, and call the censors to account. 
The education of mankind in the qualities that knit 
and adorn society has gone so far that these virtues 
require no longer a superhuman representative to give 
them honor. Knowledge of every kind has so abun- 
dantly increased that the aid of revelation to throw 
light on important subjects is not demanded. Philoso- 
phy, literature, science have taken possession of the 



224 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

fields once occupied by the surmise of faith, and are 
carefully mapping out the departments of speculation. 
The problems that remain dark, — and they are the 
many, — we are content should remain so till light 
comes from the proper sources. The darkest of them, 
no darker than they have always been, are no longer 
complicated by the difficulties of revelation which 
added enigmas where there were enough before, but 
lie open to all the light that can be thrown upon them. 
The confusion introduced into the orderly sequence 
of the world's development by the exceptionally provi- 
dential man subsides, and the cumulative power of 
history is brought to bear on the necessities of the 
hour. Relieved from the sacred duty of turning back- 
ward for the form of the perfect man, thereby over- 
looking the present and suspecting the future, we are 
permitted to estimate fairly the conditions of the 
present existence, and to prepare for the future with 
unprejudiced, rational minds. The standard of moral 
attainment and the quality of moral character set up 
as authoritative by any single race, however distin- 
guished, by any one era, however brilliant, abuses and 
injures the standards of other races, and casts suspicion 
on the attributes of other generations. The belief that at 
some time humanity has already come to full flower, dis- 
courages the laborers in the human garden. Humanity 
is still a-making; its perfection is prophecy not history. 
The lesson of the hour is self-dependence, or 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 225 

rather, if we prefer, dependence on the laws of reason. 
It will be a gain for truth when true thoughts shall 
be welcomed because they are true, not because they 
are spoken by a particular sage ; when erroneous 
thoughts shall be judged by their demerits, without 
fear of casting affront on the character of a saint. 
James Martineau's tender wisdom gains nothing in 
charm by being attributed to his beautiful fiction of a 
Christ, and Mr. Moody's painful caricatures of Provi- 
dence have an unfair advantage in being sheltered 
behind the authority of the Hebrew Messiah. The 
holy beauty of Mr. Martineau's ideal person is more 
than offset by the awful grandeur of the " evangeli- 
cal " Avenger, equally a creature of imagination. In 
the realm of fancy the lurid conception outlasts 
and overwhelms the radiant one. Safety lies in 
withdrawal from the realm of fancy, and domes- 
tication in the humbler realm of fact. The lesson 
can be now safely taught. Let men learn it as 
soon as they will. Dependence on individual person- 
alities has been the rule hitherto ; dependence on 
general ideas and organic laws, dependence on discov- 
ered fact and intelligent conclusion, will be the re- 
liance hereafter. As for the demands of the heart, 
which must have persons to cling to, they will adjust 
themselves to the new science and will satisfy them- 
selves in the future as they have done in the past. Are 
all the fine personalities dead ? Then the sooner we 



226 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 

give them a chance to revive by removing the pro- 
digious personality whose shadow has blighted them, 
the better for us. Are there none to love with en- 
thusiastic ardor ? Who have made us think so, if not 
they by whom all amiable and adorable attributes have 
been claimed before ? Are there no feet it is an honor 
to sit at, no heads it is a privilege to anoint, no hands it 
is a dignity to kiss ? Whose fault can this be, if not theirs 
who challenged the adoration of men and women and 
pronounced it consecrated because rendered to him for 
one'? Are there no leaders worth following, no causes 
worth espousing ? They that think so must be lis- 
tening to the voice that bade men follow in Galilee, 
and sighing because they cannot take up the cross 
that was imposed on the faithful in the cities of Judea. 
The imagination of man has not lost its power or 
forgotten its function since it performed the prodig- 
ious task of enthroning its hope by the side of the 
godhead. It is adequate to new and healthier per- 
formance. A world of fresh materials lies before it ; 
new heavens display their glories ; a new earth offers 
opportunity and prospect ; a new humanity presents 
its varieties of good and evil. New beauties gladden 
the open vision ; new glories fascinate the kindling 
hope. The regions of possibility, so far from being 
exhausted, have but begun to disclose their treasures. 
The realities of to-day surpass the ideals of yesterday. 
Art has a new birth. Poetry has a new birth. Phil- 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 227 

osophy teems with new births. These all look for- 
ward with confident expectation. Why should relig- 
ion, which has built up more grandeurs than any of 
them, turn her back to the new day, confess her 
creative power exhausted, and creep back to the im- 
ages of her own idolatry ? The Christ-idea, become 
human, will surpass its old triumphs. 



AUTHORITIES. 

To meet the wishes of such as may desire to 
know on what grounds his opinions are founded, or 
to pursue them further, the author gives the titles of 
a few books that may be profitably consulted. It 
were easy to make a long list of erudite works ; much 
easier than to make a short list of accessible and sug- 
gestive volumes. In an essay prepared for the intel- 
ligent and thoughtful, not for the learned or schol- 
arly class, reference to stores of erudition would be 
out of place. For this reason, the pages are left 
unencumbered with notes, and the books cited are 
purposely such as come within easy reach of general 
readers. The better known book is preferred before 
the less known, the conservative when it will answer 
the purpose, before the destructive. If the whole 
case were presentable in English, none but English 
authorities would be mentioned. Unfortunately for 
the general reader, the best literature is in German 

or French, much of which is still untranslated. To 
228 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 



229 



indicate these is a necessity for those who are ac- 
quainted with those languages, while those who are 
not, will, it is believed, find enough in English writings 
reasonably to satisfy their need. 

The titles of the books indicate sufficiently the 
points on which they throw light. The classical ref- 
erences, which are numerous, are most copious in 
Denis and Huidekoper, though Lecky, Renan, John- 
son and others cite all the most important. 



Allen, J. H. 
Baur, F. C. 



Baring-Gould, S. 
Buddha. 

Cohen. 
Coquerel, A. 



Cowper, B. Harris. 



Hebrew Men and Times. 

Kanonische Evangelien. 
Paulus, — (Translated.) 
Drei Ersten Jahrhunderte. 
Socrates und Christus. 
Die Tiibinger Schule. 
Ursprung des Episcopats. 
Lost and Hostile Gospels. 
Romantic History of. 

Les Deicides, (Translated.) 
Histoire du Credo. 
Les premieres Transformations 
Historiques du Christianisme. 
Des Beaux Arts en Italie. 
The Apocryphal Gospels. 



Deutsch, E. The Talmud. 

Didron. Iconographie Chretienne, (Translated.) 



230 

Ewald, Heinrich. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 



History of the People Israel. 
Prophets of the Old Testament. 
Drei Ersten Evangelien. 
English Life of Jesus. 



Fontanels. 


Le Christianisme Moderne. 


Furness, W. H. 


Life of Jesus. 




Jesus and his Biographers. 


Gingsburg, 


The Essenes 


Geiger. 


Judenthum und Seine Geschichte 


Greg, W. R. 


The Creed of Christendom. 


Huet, F. 


La Revolution Religieuse. 


Huidekoper, F. 


Judaism at Rome. 


Hennell, C. C. 


Origin of Christianity. 




Christian Theism. 


Hennell, S. S. 


Christianity and Infidelity. 




Present Religion. 


Holyoake. 


Christianity and Secularism. 


Johnson, S. 


The Worship of Jesus. 


Jost. 


Geschichte des Judenthum. 



Knight, Richd. Payne. The Symbolical Language of 

Ancient Art and Mythology. 

Lecky, W. E. H. History of European Morals 
Lundy, J. P. Monumental Christianity. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 



231 



Milman, H. H. 



Maury, Alfred. 



Martineau, James. Studies of Christianity. 
Merivale, Charles. Conversion of the Roman Empire. 
History of the Jews. 
History of Christianity. 
History of Latin Christianity. 
Les Legendes Pieuses du Moyen 

Age. 
La Magie et l'astrologie dans 
l'antiquite et au Moyen Age. 

Life of Jesus. 

Planting and Training of the 

Church. 
History of the Hebrew Monarchy. 
Phases of Faith. 
Catholic Union. 
Des Doctrines Religieuses des 

Juifs, 
Essais de Philos. et d'histoire re- 

ligieuse. 
Etudes Critiques sur la Bible. 
Les Evangiles Apocryphes. 
Le Symbole des Apotres. 

Philippson. Developpement de l'idee religieuse. 

Parker, Theodore. Discourse of Religion. 
Pressense, Ed. De. Jesus Christ, son temps, sa vie, 
son oeuvre. 



Neander, A. 



Newman, F. W. 



Nicolas, Michel. 



Renan, Ernest. 



Life of Jesus. 



232 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 



The Apostles. 

St. Paul. 

L'Antichrist. 

Etudes d'Histoire religieuse. 
Reville, A. Histoire du Dogme de la Divinite de 

Jesus Christ. 

Essais de Critique religieuse. 

Etudes Critiques sur l'evangile selon 
St. Matthieu. 

Quatre Conferences sur le Christian- 
isme. 

La vie de Jesus de M. Renan. 

Theodore Parker. 

L'enseignement de Jesus Christ com- 
parer a celui de ses Disciples. 
Reuss, Ed. Histoire du Canon dans l'e'glise Chret- 

ienne. 

The Apostolic Age. (Translated.) 
Rodrigues. Origin du Sermon de la Montagne. 



Schenkel. Character of Jesus (tr. by Furness). 

Schwegler, A. Das Nachapostolische Zeitalter. 
Strauss. Leben Jesu. (Translated.) 

Leben Jesu fur das Deutsche Volk. 

Christliche Glaubenslehre. 

The Old Faith and the New. 

Supernatural Religion. 
Schlesinger, M. The Historical Jesus of Nazareth. 



THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 233 

Salvador. Jesus Christ et sa Doctrine. 

Tayler, J. J. The Fourth Gospel. 

Thierry, A. Tableau de l'empire Romain. 

Vacherot Etienne. La Religion. 

Weber, C. F. Neue Untersuchung iiber das Alter 
und Ansehen des Ev. der Hebraer. 
Wise, Isaac M. The Origin of Christianity. 

Zeller, Ed. Acts of the Apostles. (Translated.) 

Strauss und Renan. (Translated.) 



Washington Irvincs Works. 



" The deliglit of childhood, tlie chivalric companion of refined 
womanhood, the solace of life at every period, his writings are an 
imperishable legacy of grace and beauty to his countrymen." 

Bracebridge Hall. Goldsmith. Granada. 

Wolfert's Boost. Alhambra. Salmagundi. 

Sketch-Book. Columbus, 3 vols, Spanish Papers. 

Traveler. Astoria. Washington, 5 vols. 

Knickerbocker. Bonneville. Life and Letters, 3 

Crayon Miscellany. Mahomet, 2 vols. vols. 



The following editions of Irving are now issued. 

I. — The Knickerbocker Edition. Large 12mo, on super- 
fine laid paper, with Illustrations, elegantly printed 

and bound in extra cloth, gilt top. Per volume $2 50 

Complete in 27 vols 67 50 

Half calf 108 00 

II. — The Riverside Edition. 16mo, on fine white paper ; 

green crape cloth, gilt top, beveled edges. Per volume 1 75 

26 volumes 45 50 

Half calf 84 50 

The same "Belles Lettres Works," 8 vols., attractively 
bound in cloth extra, $14.00 ; half calf or morocco ... 26 00 

III. — The People's Edition. From the same stereotype 
plates as above, but printed on cheaper paper, neatly 

bound in cloth. Per volume 1 25 

26 volumes 32 50 

Half calf 71 50 

" The Life and Letters," condensed into three volumes, is included in 

these three editions. 

IV. — Sunnyside Edition. — Per volume 2 25 

28 vols., 12mo cloth 63 00 

Half calf 112 00 

The Life of George Washington. The new Mount Vernon 
Edition., giving the complete Work in two handsome 
octavo volumes, fully illustrated with steel plates. 
Cloth extra, in box, $7.00; half calf 12 00 

The one volume Popular Edition condensed, with 

plates ; for school and popular use. Large, 12mo, 
cloth extra, $2.50; half calf, extra 4 50 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers, 

182 Fifth Avenue, New York. 



RECENT PUBLICATIONS 

OP 

G. P. PU TNAM 'S SONS. 

DODGE. The Plains of the Great West, and their Inhabitants 

A vivid and picturesque description of the Western plains of the American 

Continent, including accounts of the game, a careful topographical record, notes 

of emigration, &c, &c, and an exhaustive account of the life and habits of the 

Indians (both the " reserved " and the " unreserved "), their customs in fighting, 

hunting, marriage, death, clothing, religious beliefs and rites, &c, &c. , with some 

suggestions for the treatment of the Indian question. By Richard Irving 

DoDGE,Colonel in the U.S. Army, i large octavo volume very fully illustrated,$4.oo 

Colonel Dodge has, during many years, held positions of responsibility on the Western 

frontier, and has enjoyed exceptional opportunities fo: obtaining an intimate knowledge of the 

life and habits of the Indians, and of the features of the great plains in •which they live, and 

the record of his experiences and observations will be found not only most fascinating reading, 

but a trustworthy and authoritative guide on the subjects of which it treats. 

VAN LAUN. The History of French Literature. 

By Henri Van Laun, Translator of Taine's " History of English Literature,*' 

the Works of Moliere, etc., etc. 

Vol. I.— FROM ITS ORIGIN TO THE RENAISSANCE. 8vo, cloth 

extra, $3.00. 

We have to deal with a people essentially spirited and intellectual, whose spirit and 
intellect have been invariably the wonder and admiration, if not the model and mould, of 
contemporary thought, and whose literary triumphs remain to this day among the most notable 
landmarks of modern literature. * * * Extract from Author's Pre/ace. 

STEPHENS. English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. 

By Leslie Stephens, author of "Hours in a Library," etc., etc. 2 volumes, 

large octavo, cloth extra, §8.00. 

• * * Thus the progress of the intellect necessarily involves a conflict. It implies 
destruction as correlative to growth. The history of thought is, in great part, a history of the 
gradual emancipation of the mind from the errors spontaneously generated by its first childlike 
attempts at speculative doctrines which once appeared to be simply expressions of immediate 
observation, have contained a hypothetical element, gradually dissolved by contact with facts. 

— Extract from Author's Preface. 

THE SELECT BRITISH ESSAYISTS. A series planned to consist 

of half a dozen volumes, comprising the Representative Papers of The Spectator, 

Tatler, Guardian, Rambler, Lounger, Mirror, Looker-On, etc., etc. Edited, 

with Introduction and Biographical Sketches of the Authors, by John Habberton. 

Yol. I.— THE SPECTATOR. By Addison and Steele. Square i6mo, 

beautifully printed, and tastefully bound in cloth extra, $1.25 

This series has been planned to preserve, and to present in a form at once attractive and 
economical, the permanently valuable portions of those standard productions of the Essayists, 
which, as well for the perfection of their English style, as for the sterling worth of their 
matter are deservedly perennial. 

Vol. 2. SIR ROGER DE COVERLY PAPERS. From The Spectator 

One volume, i6mo, $1.00. 

** Mr. Habberton has given us a truly readable and delightful selection from a series of 
volumes that ought possibly never to go out of fashion, but which by the reason of their 
length and slightly antiquated form there is danger of our overlooking Liberal Christian. 



A SELECTION FROM STANDARD PUBLICATIONS 

By JOHN BASCOM, 

President of the University of Wisconsin. 

I. The Principles of Psychology. 

i2mo, Cloth, $1.75. 
"To the few who think and investigate, this book will be a rare delight.**— 
San Francisco Bulletin. 

II. Science, Philosophy, and Religion. 

i2mo, Cloth, $1.75. 
"Vigorous, thoughtful, sometimes brilliant, and uncommonly refreshing 
reading. " — Boston. Commonwealth. 

III. The Philosophy of Religion. 

Large i2mo, Cloth, $2.00. 

IV. The Philosophy of English Literature. 

i2mo, Cloth, 1.75. 
** A knowledge of forces as well as of facts is essential to our comprehension 
of any phenomenon. It is this which the author helps us to gain." — Chicago 
Tribune. 

By P. A. CHADBOURNE, 
President of Williams College. 

I. Natural Theology ; or, Nature and the Bible. 
From the same Author. 

i2mo, Cloth, $ 1.50. 
*' Once taken up cannot be laid down unread." — Washington Republic. ' 

II. Instinct — Its Office in the Animal Kingdom, and 
Its Relation to the Higher Powers in Man. 

i2mo, Cloth, $i.75- 



By JOHN J. ELMENDORF, 
Professor of Mental Science in Racine College. 

The Outlines of the History of Philosophy. 

i2mo, Cloth. 
A succinct Chronological Record and Analysis of Systems of Philosophy 
from the earliest times to the present day, prepared as a guide to the Student 
and to the general reader. 

By JAMES MARTINEAU, D.D., LL.D. 

I, Religion as Affected by Modern Materialism. 

i2mo, Cloth, 75 cents. 

II. The Attitude of Materialism Towards Theology. 

i2mo, Cloth, $1.00. 
"The ablest analyses of Tyndall and his school of thought that have yel 
appeared." — London Spectator. 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 

182 Fifth Ave., New York. 



VALUABLE BOOKS 

PUBLISHED BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 

New York. 



I. Tent Life in Siberia. Adventures Among the Koraks and 
other Tribes in Kamchatka and Northern Asia, Fifth Edition. 12mo, 
clothextra $2 00 

" We strongly recommend thii book as one of the most entertaining volumes of travel that hare 
appeared for some years." — London Athenaeum. 

H. Travels in Portugal. By John Latouchb. With Photographic 

Illustrations. Octavo, cloth extra S 60 

"A delightfully written book, as fair as It is pleasant. • • • Entertaining, fresh, and as fall 
of wit as of valuable Information." — London Spectator. 

IH. The Abode of Snow. A Tour through Chinese Tibet, the 
Indian Caucasus, and thb Upper Valleys of the Himalaya. By 
Andrew Wilson. Square octavo, cloth extra, with map 2 26 

" There is not a page In this volume which will not repay pernsal. • • • The author describes 
all he meets with on his way with Inimitable spirit."— London Athenaeum. 

IV. The Life and Journals of John J. Audubon, the Natu- 

RALIST. Comprising Narratives of his Expeditions in the American 
Forests, Ac. 12mo, cloth extra, with Portrait 2 25 

" It Is a grand story of a grand life ; more instructive than a sermon ; more romantio than • 
romance." — Harpers' Magazine. 

V. Notes on England and Italy. By Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne 

(wife of the Novelist). Third edition. 12mo, cloth 2 00 

Illustrated Edition, with 12 Steel Plates. Octavo, cloth extra, gilt edges.... 6 00 

"One o' the most delightful books of travel that have come under our notice."— Worcester Spy. 

" The grace and tenderness of the author of the ' Scarlet Letter ' is discernable in Its pages.**' 
London Saturday Review. 

VI. Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland in 1803. By 
Dorothy Wordsworth (Sister of the Poet). Edited by Principal Shaibp, 
LL.D. 12mo, clothextra 2 SO 

" The volume glistens with charming passages, showing how rich in ' Wordsworthlan ' fancy waa 
this modest sister." — London Athenaeum. 

VII. Bayard Taylor's Travel. Complete in 10 Vols. Containing 

works upon Africa; Egypt; Iceland; California and Mexico* Greece and 
Russia; India, China and Japan; Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily and Spain; 

Sweden, Denmark and Lapland; Europe, Ac, Ac. Per volnme 1 50 

Or, 11 Volumes, neatly put up in box 16 60 

" There I* no romance to us quite equal to one of Bayard Taylor's books of traveL"— Hartford 
Republican. 

f^- PUTNAM'S NEW CATALOGUE will be forwarded to any addrest 
on receipt of stamp. 



BOOKS BY OCTAVIUS B. FROTHINGHAM. 



THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY. An Essay. 
Third Edition— Revised. Price, $1.50. 

" Nobody can peruse this book without respect for the learning, mental honesty and 
skill in the statement of his convictions, possessed by the author, and for the essential 
integrity and philanthropic tendency of his spirit." — Springfield Republican. 

" A profoundly sincere book, the work of one who has read largely, studied thor- 
oughly, reflected patiently. * * * It is a model of scholarly culture and of finished 
and vigorous style." — Boston Globe. 

"A marked book, forming a most important contribution to our religious literature." 
—Boston Register. 

THE CHILD'S BOOK OF RELIGION. 

For Sunday-Schools and Homes. Price, $1.00. 

THE SAFEST CREED, and other Discourses. 

i2mo, Cloth, $1.50. 

We commend these discourses, not " as food for babes," but as full of suggest!©* 
for earnest and- thoughtful men. 

STORIES FROM THE LIPS OF THE TEACHER. 

With Frontispiece. Cloth, $1.00. 

•'The Parables are so re-told as to absorb the attention of the reader, and to fasten 
upon the mind what the writer believes to have been the impression the Saviour meant to 
convey. It is in style and thought a superior book, and will interest alike young and old." 
— ZioiCs Herald (Methodist.) 

STORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS. 

With Frontispiece. Cloth, $1.00. 

" A work of culture and taste ; it will be welcome to all ages, and gives the sublimes! 
lessons of manhood in the simple language of a child." — Springfield Republican, 

BELIEFS OF THE UNBELIEVERS. A Lecture. 
i2mo, Paper, 25 cents. 

TRANSCENDENTALISM IN NEW ENGLAND. A History. 
With sketches and studies of Emerson, Alcott, Parker, Margaret 
Fuller, the Brook-Farm Community, etc. 

8vo, Cloth extra, with steel portrait of the author, $2.50. 

THE LIFE OF THEODORE PARKER. 
8vo. With Portrait, $3.00. 



8 « 

* s 






Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: June 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



